Private label, Amazon style
AmazonBasics leads Amazon’s private brand sales, with over $400 million (as of Dec. 20, 2017) in estimated sales, or 85 percent of total Amazon private brands sales in the United States, according to e-commerce analytics firm One Click Retail. Due to a strong performance of both Pinzon (bath, bedding goods, etc.) and AmazonBasics, Amazon’s Home product group – which was expected to achieve over $80 million in 2017 sales – surpassed its Electronics product group, estimated at less than $70 million. The Amazon Elements line of baby wipes continues to be a success, nearly doubling its 2016 estimated sales with a growth of 94 percent year-over-year. The estimated >$15 million sold in 2017 in baby wipes alone makes up the majority of the Amazon Elements brands, supplemented by just over $1 million in estimated sales of vitamins and supplements. Since September 2017, Amazon has launched several new private brands, according to One Click Retail: Rivet (consumer rugs and living room furniture); Stone & Beam (premium rugs, sofas, lamps and fixtures); and Goodsport, Peak Velocity and Rebel Canyon (activewear and sports apparel).
A new term to learn: Blockchain
Though typically associated solely with bitcoin and cryptocurrency, blockchain technology is becoming increasingly important for a wide range of industries – from oil & gas to security and sports betting, according to NetworkNewsWire. Blockchain technology was initially developed to facilitate the exchange of cryptocurrencies without the need of a middleman, like a bank, to make a transaction. In this system, every transaction is represented online as a block, which is distributed to a network of computers for approval before being added to the chain to complete the transaction. Blockchain uses cryptography to secure exchanges and provides a digital ledger of transactions that are transparent, reportedly reducing the risk of fraud and preventing transactional duplication.
Cellphone radiation
California’s new cellphone safety guidelines for adults and children are being welcomed by the public health, environmental and First Amendment advocates. The guidelines echo a Berkeley City Council action in May 2015, which approved a cellphone disclosure ordinance that obligates vendors to warn buyers that carrying the devices close to the body could expose them to excessive radiation. The state guidance advises consumers to, among other things, keep cellphones away from their head and bodies during the day and their beds at night, as well as avoid using cellphones when streamlining audio or video or downloading or sending large files.
Very best apps of 2017
A sampling of comments from the editors of Mashable on what they believe are some of the year’s very best apps:
- Astro: The app has all the organizational features you’d expect from an email client: multiple inboxes, gesture-based controls, message scheduling, and the ability to “snooze” emails for later. What makes Astro stand out, though, is the built-in assistant that learns your habits and can help remind you to stay on top of your messages. Send it a few commands and it can unsubscribe you from annoying newsletters, remind you to get back to people, and manage your VIP list.
- Datally: Worrying about how much mobile date you’re using seems like one of those problems we should be able to easily avoid by now, but too often that’s just not the case. And, depending on where you live, cellular data can quickly add up to a costly investment. That’s why Google’s data-saving app Datally is so dang useful. The app not only breaks down exactly how you’re using your data; it helps you prevent apps from accessing it when you don’t want them to. Meaning: No more surprise overages.
- Halide: Most camera apps aren’t worth using simply because it’s just so much easier to stick with iOS’s default camera. Halide is an exception worth making, though. The app gives you full manual control over exposure, focus, ISO, white balance, and shutter speed with easy gesture-based controls that are meant to emulate old-school film cameras.
- Ikea: One of the breakout augmented-reality (AR) apps of the year came not from a tech giant, but from Ikea. The furniture company’s AR app, which lets you preview how certain pieces of furniture will look in your home, isn’t just clever – it’s actually useful.
A decentralized ISP
Open Garden wants to make it easy for anybody with an Android phone to share their Wi-Fi connections with anyone who is nearby, reports TechCrunch. To incentivize people to do so, the company plans to launch its own Ethereum token in early 2018. The company bills this as the launch of a “decentralized Internet Service Provider (ISP).” The rationale is that most people use only a small amount of their broadband connection’s bandwidth cap. So why not share this access with others and earn some OG in the process? While Open Garden argues that this is a totally new concept, the likes of Fon and others have long enabled W-Fi sharing without the need for Ethereum tokens and mesh networks. Most have done so with mixed success, likely because few people actually want to share their Internet access. Open Garden is trying to jumpstart the process of building participation by using its FireChat app to bootstrap this process. The company says its messaging service has over 5 million registered users and they will form the basis for seeding this network. Over time, Open Garden also plans to add apps for iOS, Mac, Windows and set-top streaming boxes.
Hey, pirate. Yeah…you
Tom Rutledge, chief executive officer of Charter Communications Inc., which sells cable TV under the Spectrum name, is leading an industrywide effort to crack down on password-sharing, reports Bloomberg. It’s a growing problem that could cost pay-TV companies millions of subscribers – and billions of dollars in revenue – when they can least afford it. “There’s lots of extra streams, there’s lots of extra passwords, there’s lots of people who could get free service,” Rutledge said at an industry conference in December. The CEO has said that one unidentified channel owner had 30,000 simultaneous streams from a single account. Charter, which operates in cities including New York and Los Angeles, isn’t the only company tackling the issue. Researchers at Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN network recently asked a group of about 50 millennial sports fans how many of them shared passwords. Everyone raised their hand, said Justin Connolly, executive vice president for affiliate sales and marketing for ESPN and other Disney networks. “It’s piracy,” he said. “It’s people consuming what they haven’t paid for.”