Big Tech booms even as lockdown living wanes

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Big Tech goliaths like Facebook and Amazon unveiled whopping profits this week, showing their dominance in lockdown lifestyles is on course to grow well beyond the pandemic.

"Tech wins the day, the week, and seemingly the year," Futurum Research analysts said of the surging revenues, driven by digital advertising, cloud computing, gaming and booming use of smartphones and e-commerce.

"The strength of tech is clearly untethered from Covid," they added.

Powerhouses Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet all reported higher revenues even as they face heightened scrutiny from antitrust regulators for their growing dominance of key economic sectors.

Amazon said Thursday that second-quarter profit jumped 48 percent from a year ago to $7.8 billion, even if that showing was below high Wall Street forecasts.

A growing number of consumers turned to Amazon during the pandemic to get everything from tofu to toilet paper, and its cloud computing division also grew to help businesses and consumers stay connected.

The Amazon results capped a series of earnings from the major tech firms that benefited from successive lockdowns, but also the gradual lifting of restrictions.

Earlier in the week, Apple said its profit in the just-ended quarter nearly doubled amid improving consumer spending and a "growing sense of optimism" as pandemic lockdowns eased.

Revenue from iPhone sales jumped some 50 percent and Apple posted increases for its services such as digital payments, music, streaming television and gaming.

Facebook reported its profit doubled in the recently ended quarter as digital advertising surged, but warned of cooler growth in the months ahead in an update which sent its shares sinking.

Google parent Alphabet reported quarterly profit that had nearly tripled, as money poured in from ads on its search engine and YouTube video platform.

'Not going away'

Revenue at the global video-sharing platform topped $7 billion, a leap from the $3.8 billion brought in during the same period a year earlier, according to Alphabet.

Techsponential analyst Avi Greengart told AFP that hybrid work, online entertainment and internet shopping are now facts of life.

"Those are overarching trends that got accelerated by the pandemic but aren't going away," he added.

However, a gradual resumption of in-person activities will require adjustments from Big Tech.

Amazon chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky said on an earnings call that a reason for missing revenue expectations appeared to be vaccines giving people the confidence to leave home.

"Not only shopping offline but also living life and getting out," Olsavsky said. "It takes away from shopping time. It's a good phenomenon and it's great."

Regulators' wary gaze

Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai credited long-term investments in artificial intelligence and cloud computing as powering the internet giant's performance.

Google's cloud computing business competes with powerhouses Amazon and Microsoft, poising them to vie for virtual terrain in an immersive online world.

Microsoft this week reported a jump in profits in the recently ended quarter, keeping strong momentum from accelerated gains in cloud computing during the pandemic.

Transition to relying on computing power and services in the internet cloud as well as working remotely are likely to last, playing to the strength of tech giants powering such platforms, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives.

However, a global chip shortage has hobbled production of the wide range of devices enhanced with computing and internet capabilities, from cars to video game consoles.

And, as US tech titans gain clout and wealth, they are increasingly in the crosshairs of government regulators wary of monopolistic abuses and sidestepped taxes.

Despite political pressure, the tech companies continue to spend on bolstering and expanding their offerings.

Amazon made a deal early this year to buy iconic Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for $8.45 billion in a move aimed at strengthening its Amazon Prime television streaming service.

Apple is working on self-driving car technology, while Alphabet is already testing a "robo-taxi" service in the United States with its Waymo unit.

Agence France-Presse

US urges countries to suspend digital taxes

Washington – US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is urging countries like France to suspend taxes on global computing giants such as Google and Amazon and wait for a negotiated agreement on international taxation, according to a letter released Wednesday.

As the United States is poised to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on $2.4 billion in French products over that country’s digital services tax, Mnuchin said talks in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development are key to resolving the issue.

“We believe that it is very important that these talks reach agreement in order to prevent the proliferation of unilateral measures, like digital services taxes, which threaten the longstanding multilateral consensus on international taxation,” Mnuchin said in a letter to OECD chief Jose Angel Gurria.


“We urge all countries to suspend digital services tax initiatives in order to allow the OECD to successfully reach a multilateral agreement,” he said in the letter, which was dated Tuesday.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on Monday released a report slamming France’s tax as discriminatory and designed to target American tech giants like Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon.


He said Washington would proceed quickly with plans to impose tariffs on French products, including champagne, cosmetics, yogurt and Roquefort cheese.

The decision “sends a clear signal that the United States will take action against digital tax regimes that discriminate or otherwise impose undue burdens on US companies,” Lighthizer said in a statement on Monday.

The French tax imposes a three percent levy on the revenues earned by technology firms in France, which often come from online advertising and other digital services.


It targets revenue instead of profits, which are often reported by tech giants in low-tax jurisdictions like Ireland or Luxembourg in a practice that has enraged governments.

Lighthizer’s office said it is considering widening the investigation to look into similar taxes in Austria, Italy and Turkey.

Mnuchin said there is “broad support” for providing greater certainty on taxation.

“We look forward to working with the OECD along these lines, building on the work already done.”

A top EU official expressed concern this week that President Donald Trump’s administration was planning to pull out of the multilateral talks, so Mnuchin’s support for the talks come as a relief.

Cedric O, France’s secretary of state for the digital economy, also told AFP in Washington on Tuesday that France believed there was still time to stave off the threatened of tariffs.

“The first and foremost objective that we have is to strike a deal at the OECD,” he said, insisting that the current row was “not the end of the story.”

source: philstar.com

IS THIS THE END OF THE SECRETARY? | Voice aide Alexa now ready for the office — Amazon

Amazon.com Inc wants to be your new executive assistant at work.

The company on Thursday said that Alexa, its increasingly popular digital aide that shoppers command by voice, is now programmed to handle a range of tedious office tasks.

Businesses can buy Alexa devices that help employees dial into conference calls, manage their calendars, find open meeting rooms and – not surprisingly – order work supplies from Amazon.

Amazon wants Alexa to be everywhere, and it needs more voice data to feed and “train” it so that talking to the assistant feels like talking to a friend. The company is looking to make money in the long term from people shopping with Alexa and using it – rather than Apple Inc’s Siri or Alphabet Inc’s Google Assistant – as their go-to voice technology.

“Meetings always start 10 minutes late” due to small technology issues, Amazon’s Chief Technology Officer Werner Vogels said at the company’s cloud-computing summit in Las Vegas on Thursday, announcing the service. “If voice is a natural way of interacting in your home … why don’t we build something that you can actually use at work as well?”

The answer to that question is Amazon’s “Alexa for Business” offering, which lets companies buy Alexa devices like the Echo for employees to share at $7 per month per gadget. That is a departure from Amazon’s normal requirement that Alexa devices be tied to a shopper’s Prime account to unlock all features.

Businesses also can enroll employees’ home devices into their Alexa networks for $3 per month per user. The service lets companies centrally provision and manage devices for their organizations.

The move adds to Amazon’s competition with Microsoft Corp, which bought internet phone and video chat company Skype in 2011 with hopes of improving communications at work. Microsoft has also recently courted businesses with applications of its own voice technology, with programs that convert audio into text and vice versa.

Still, integrating a voice aide that is popular among consumers – whether for bedside tables, dressing rooms, cars or even refrigerators – into the workplace would be a first for the technology industry.

“Alexa and Amazon are being much more aggressive, whether it’s integrating with third parties or going to new markets like this,” said Gene Munster, a veteran equity analyst and now head of research at Loup Ventures.

source: interaksyon.com

Can Europe create the next Google?

LONDON, ENGLAND — Europe is making major strides to eliminate barriers that have held back the region from developing tech firms that can compete on the scale of global giants Alphabet Inc’s Google, Amazon.com Inc or Tencent Holdings Inc , a report published on Thursday shows.

The region has thriving tech hubs in major cities, with record new funding, experienced entrepreneurs, a growing base of technical talent and an improving regulatory climate, according to a study by European venture firm Atomico.

While even the largest European tech ventures remain a fraction of the size of the biggest U.S. and Asian rivals, global music streaming leader Spotify of Sweden marks the rising ambition of European entrepreneurs. Spotify is gearing up for a stock market flotation next year that could value it at upward of $20 billion.

“The probability that the next industry-defining company could come from Europe – and become one of the world’s most valuable companies – has never been higher,” said Tom Wehmeier, Atomico’s head of research, who authored the report.

Top venture capitalists and entrepreneurs in the region told Reuters they are increasingly confident that the next world-class companies could emerge from Europe in fields including artificial intelligence, video gaming, music and messaging.


“What we still need to develop is entrepreneurs who have the drive to take it all the way – I think we are starting to see that now,” said Bernard Liautaud, managing partner at venture fund Balderton Capital, who sold his software company Business Objects to SAP for $6.8 billion a decade ago.

The Atomico report is being published in conjunction with the annual Nordic technology start-up festival taking place in Helsinki this week and set to draw some 20,000 participants.

Stronger fundamentals

Capital invested in European tech companies is on track to reach a record this year, with $19.1 billion in funding projected through the end of 2017 – up 33 percent over 2016, according to investment tracking firm Dealroom.co.

The median size of European venture funds nearly tripled to around 58 million euros (£51.1 million) in 2017 compared with five years ago, according to Invest Europe’s European Data Cooperative on fundraising investment activity.

Beyond the availability of funding, Europe has a range of technical talent available to work more cheaply than in Silicon Valley, enabling start-ups to get going with far less funding.

With a pool of professional developers now numbering 5.5 million, European tech employment outpaces the comparable 4.4 million employed in the United States, according to data from Stack Overflow, a site popular with programmers.

London remains the top European city in terms of numbers of professional developers, but Germany, as a country, overtook Britain in the past year with 837,398 developers compared with 813,500, the report states, using Stack Overflow statistics.

While median salaries for software engineers are rising in top European cities Berlin, London, Paris and Barcelona, they are one-third to one-half the average cost of salaries in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is more than $129,000, based on Glassdoor recruiting data.

Pushing up against the limits

Big hurdles remain. A survey of 1,000 founders by authors of the report found European entrepreneurs were worried by Brexit, with concerns, especially in Britain, over hiring, investment and heightened uncertainty in the business climate.

Although Europe has deep engineering talent, many big startups focus on business model innovation in areas such as media, retail and gaming rather than on breakthrough technology developments that can usher in new industries, critics say.

Regulatory frameworks in Europe put the brakes on development on promising technologies such as cryptocurrencies, “flying taxis” and gene editing, while autonomous vehicles and drones face fewer obstacles, the report says.

A separate study by Index Ventures, also to be published on Thursday, found that employees at fast-growing tech start-ups in Europe tend to receive only half the stock option stakes that are a primary route to riches for their U.S. rivals. Yet their options are taxed twice as much.

The Index report said employees in successful, later-stage European tech start-ups receive around 10 percent of capital, compared with 20 percent ownership in Silicon Valley firms.

“There is quite a gap today between stock option practices in Europe and those in Silicon Valley,” Index Ventures partner Martin Mignot said in an interview. “There are other issues where Europe is behind, but we think stock options should be at the top of the agenda.”

Another factor holding back Europe is that regional stock markets encourage firms to go public prematurely, Liataud said.

“Europe has markets for average companies. In the U.S., going public is hard. You have to be really, really good. You have to be $100 million, minimum, in revenue,” the French entrepreneur-turned-investor said. “Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange have not lowered their standards.”

source: interaksyon.com

Google takes on Apple, Amazon with new hardware push

SAN FRANCISCO — Alphabet Inc’s Google on Tuesday announced a new “Pixel” smartphone and a suite of new consumer electronics products for the home, planting itself firmly in the hardware business and challenging Apple Inc’s iPhone at the high end of the $400 billion global smartphone market.

The string of announcements – including the $649 Pixel, a smart speaker for the living room dubbed “Home,” a virtual reality headset, and a new Wi-Fi router – is the clearest sign yet that Google intends to compete head-to-head with Apple, Amazon.com Inc and even manufacturers of phones using its own Android mobile operating system.

Company executives, echoing Apple’s longstanding philosophy, said they were striving for tighter integration of hardware and software.

“The thinking is that if we can work on hardware and software together, we can innovate much better,” Google hardware chief Rick Osterloh said in an interview with Reuters, citing a recent reorganization that united once-disparate hardware teams.

Under the new structure, the company has begun to take a much more integrated approach to things like supply chain management and design, added Mario Queiroz, a vice president of product management.

“The learnings from one product are benefiting another product,” he said.

Unlike earlier Google phone efforts under the Nexus brand, the Pixel devices are designed and developed by Google from the start, although Taiwan’s HTC Corp will serve as the contract manufacturer.

Swipe at Apple

Taking another page from the Apple playbook, Google said it would work exclusively with a single carrier in the United States, Verizon Communications Inc, on the Pixel, emulating Apple’s agreement to launch the original iPhone with AT&T Inc. That deal gave Apple unprecedented control over the look of the phone and how it worked.

Shares of Alphabet closed up 0.3 percent, while Verizon fell 1.2 percent.

The phone comes in two sizes, and its high-end camera is one of few distinguishing features, analysts said. The phones come in black, blue and silver and will be able to get up to a seven-hour charge in 15 minutes. Pre-orders begin on Tuesday.

“Aside from the camera, the new Google Pixels are pretty undifferentiated compared to Samsung and iPhone seventh generation phones,” industry analyst Patrick Moorhead said.

While the new phones are clearly aimed at competing with the iPhone – Google executives took several swipes at Apple in their on-stage remarks – analysts said Android rivals like Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) could be the biggest victim if the Pixel takes off.

Google’s strategy of licensing Android for free and profiting from embedded services such as search and maps made Android the dominant mobile operating system with some 89 percent of the global market, according to IDC.

But Apple still rules the high end of the market, and Google has long been frustrated by the emergence of many variations of Android and the inconsistent experience that has produced. Pushing its own hardware will likely complicate its relationship with Android licensees, analysts said.

 All-purpose assistant

Google Kicked off the event Tuesday by touting the Google Assistant, the company’s voice-activated artificial intelligence system and its answer to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa. The presenter showed how a customers could make a restaurant reservation with a few phrases spoken into the phone.

The assistant will be embedded into the Pixel and Home products and is being positioned as the central feature in a family of integrated hardware and software products.

It is one of a handful of similar assistants that are vying for supremacy as more people search the web and make purchases online using voice commands, which may eventually supplant keyboards and touchscreens as the primary means of controlling digital devices.

While Google is often cited as the leader in artificial intelligence, Amazon stole a march on the company with its Alexa-powered Echo home speaker system, a surprise hit. The Home device and the Echo have many of the same features.

Google’s “Daydream View” virtual reality headset, meanwhile, puts the company in competition with Facebook Inc, owner of Oculus. The device, which works with an Android phone, is far cheaper and simpler. It will be available in November for $79, in time for the end-of-year shopping season.

Home will also be available in November for $129, including a six-month trial of ad-free YouTube.

Google also unveiled a new version of its Chromecast digital media player and a router dubbed Google Wifi, both boasting the same sleek, minimalist design as the Home product.

“These look like products from a single company,” said Queiroz, the Google executive.

source: interaksyon.com

Tech spats spark fears of ‘digital protectionism’

WASHINGTON — As American tech giants extend their global reach, fears are growing on their side of the Atlantic over trade barriers some see as “digital protectionism”.

While China has long been a difficult market for US firms to navigate, tensions have been rising with the European Union on privacy, antitrust and other issues, impacting tech firms such as Google, Facebook and Uber.

In recent weeks, Europe’s highest court struck down an agreement which allowed US firms to transfer personal data out of the region without running afoul of privacy rules.

In parallel, Brussels is looking to create a new “digital single market” simplifying rules for operating across EU borders — but which could also include new regulations for online “platforms”.

Some see this as a jab at US retailers like Amazon, “sharing economy” services like Airbnb or even news outfits.

Ed Black, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, said the platform proposal “has the potential to be troublesome.”

“Nobody has defined what a platform is,” Black told AFP. “It feels like a proposal to solve a non-problem.”

After the European Court of Justice invalidated the so-called “Safe Harbor” data-sharing agreement this month, Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker said Washington was “deeply disappointed.”

For the past 15 years, the key transatlantic accord allowed tech firms like Facebook to operate on both sides of the ocean without running afoul of EU privacy laws.

The ruling, Pritzker said, “creates significant uncertainty for both US and EU companies and consumers and puts at risk the thriving transatlantic digital economy.”

Undercurrent of fear

“We’re waiting to see which way Europe goes,” says Daniel Castro, vice president at the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a Washington think tank.

Castro detects “an undercurrent of fear” in Europe because of the popularity of services such as Google and Facebook but argues that the US and EU “need to be on the same side when it comes to free trade.”

Another source of friction is Europe’s effort to enforce the “right to be forgotten,” allowing individuals to remove online content from searches that are outdated or inaccurate.

France has ordered Google to carry this out worldwide, not just in Europe — but US firms see this as a form of censorship, effectively enabling people to rewrite history to hide embarrassing data.

“You’re taking about Europe imposing its version of how the world should be on everyone else,” Castro said.

President Barack Obama expressed concerns about digital trade barriers in an interview earlier this year with Re/code.

“We have owned the Internet. Our companies have created it, expanded it, perfected it in ways that (European firms) can’t compete,” Obama said in response to a question about European actions in the digital sphere.

“And oftentimes what is portrayed as high-minded positions on issues sometimes is just designed to carve out some of their commercial interests.”

Buy time for Europe

That view was echoed by Kati Suominen, who heads the Future of Trade initiative for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.

Europe sees it is lagging and is moving on policies in order “to buy time,” she argued.

“Europe is seeking to build its own digital economy by complicating the operations of foreign companies on European soil. In that sense, it is protectionism,” she said.

Rather than throw up new barriers, she argued, Europe should be tearing them if it wishes to foster a digital economy — notably to enable better access to venture capital.

Last month Guenther Oettinger, the EU commissioner for the digital economy and society, brushed aside suggestions of protectionism.

“Our rules on a European level are relevant for everybody, for European producers and players, for Asian players, and for American players as well,” he said during a visit to San Francisco.

Snowden impact

While Google has been the target of a contentious EU anti-trust probe among other issues, Facebook has been especially impacted by privacy rules, with Ireland become the latest to examine the legality of its transfer of user data across the Atlantic.

Belgian officials have also sought to prevent Facebook from using a data “cookie” that gathers information about users. The social media giant says the tool helps verify legitimate accounts and combat spam.

A key element in the US-EU row over privacy has been the fear that US Internet firms are handing over data to the National Security Agency, in light of revelations from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

To address those concerns, US lawmakers have moved to pass a bill allowing non-citizens to enforce their data protection rights in US courts under the Privacy Act.

Berin Szoka, president of the activist group TechFreedom, said the bill was a step toward “repairing America’s tarnished image on data privacy.”

He noted that the failure until now to address the issue in Washington “has provoked an international crisis — one that could lead to a European blockade of American Internet companies.”

Suominen argued that the US and EU have an chance to foster a flourishing digital economy — with appropriate rules — as part of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) currently being negotiated.

But she warned that policymakers need to bring their thinking up to date.

“Policymakers are struggling to understand what these technologies are and what they can do, and we have archaic policies from the 20th century,” she said. “I worry that we are not on the right path for the 21st century.”

source: interaksyon.com

Amazon rolls out $49.99 ‘mass market’ tablet, new Fire TV

SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon.com Inc introduced on Thursday a $49.99 tablet, a price tag analysts said was low enough to set it apart in a crowded market and draw more customers to its online services.

The new Fire tablet, one of several new and upgraded devices launched by Amazon, comes with a 7-inch (17 cm) wide screen and a front and back camera. It will start shipping on Sept. 30.

“There’s one part of the tablet (market) that’s growing right now and….that’s sub $100 tablets,” said Dave Limp, senior vice president of Amazon devices, adding that the company’s $99 Fire HD was its best selling tablet last year.

Analysts said there are few comparable tablets that cost as little as the new Fire. The device comes with a quad core processor and 12 gigabyte storage.

“The lesson we learned from consumer electronics is that when the market matures consumers go cheaper…If you’re Amazon and you know this is going to happen you might as well join in,” said James McQuivey, principal analyst at Forrester.

He called the $50 tablet a “gateway drug” for Amazon to attract new customers to Prime, a $99-a year shopping program estimated to have around 40 million global members.

The potential to draw more customers may appease investors but could prove costly if Amazon fails to sell large volumes, analysts said.

Amazon took a $170 million write down in the third quarter last year after it struggled to sell its inventory of $200 Fire smartphones. Amazon has said it does not plan to profit from devices but to drive more customers to services through the gadgets.

Amazon on Thursday also rolled out a line of new, 8-inch and 10-inch Fire HD tablets and revamped Fire TV gadgets.

The $99.99 Fire TV set-top box integrates its cloud-based virtual assistant Alexa, allowing viewers to check the weather, look up sports scores and play music.

Amazon said viewers will soon be able to control home appliances through Fire TV, a function available on Echo, the company’s personal aide gadget that can control thermostats and lights.

source: interaksyon.com

Amazon takes first ever Globes for ‘Transparent’

LOS ANGELES | Online retail giant Amazon scored its first ever Golden Globes on Sunday with two wins for dark comedy “Transparent” — a breakthrough in its bid to catch up with streaming pioneer Netflix.

The series, starring veteran actor Jeffrey Tambor, tells the story of a man who has transitioned to become a woman and is working out the thorny details of telling his family.

It took home prizes for best comedy/musical series and best actor for Tambor.

“This is dedicated to too many trans people that died too young,” said series creator Jill Soloway. “Maybe we’ll be able to teach the world something about authenticity and truth and love.”

A few minutes later, Tambor accepted his trophy, saying: “Oh, this is big. This is much bigger than me.”

“I would like to dedicate my performance and this award to the transgender community,” he added.

In October, Amazon ordered a second season of the series — the creation of Soloway, an Emmy-nominated writer on cult series “Six Feet Under.” The first season was released on September 26.

Amazon has recently bolstered its streaming video offerings.

But so far, its own original content has not quite reached the popularity level achieved by Netflix, with its signature series “House of Cards” and “Orange Is The New Black.”

“House of Cards” star Kevin Spacey took home the prize for best actor in a television drama — his first Globe in eight nominations.

“This is just the beginning of my revenge,” Spacey joked in the Southern drawl of his character, Frank Underwood.

Showtime’s new series “The Affair” — the story of a love affair gone wrong, told from the perspective of both the man and the woman — took home honors for best drama and best actress (Ruth Wilson).

The best drama series category had been seen as a tough one, with “Downton Abbey,” “Game of Thrones,” “The Good Wife” and “House of Cards” also in the mix.

Another big winner on the television side was “Fargo” — a miniseries based on the Oscar-winning crime thriller film by Joel and Ethan Coen.

It took home prizes for best miniseries or television movie, and best actor in a miniseries or TV movie for Billy Bob Thornton — besting HBO’s widely acclaimed “True Detective” in both categories.

Gina Rodriguez took home the Globe for best comedy TV actress for her breakout performance in “Jane the Virgin” — based on a Venezuelan telenovela.

“Thank you to my mom and my dad for telling me to dream big and to never stop dreaming,” Rodriguez said.

source: interaksyon.com

Amazon snaps up live video startup Twitch for $970 million

SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon.com Inc snapped up live-streaming gaming network Twitch Interactive for about $970 million in cash, reflecting Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos’ resolve to transform Amazon into an Internet destination beyond its core retail operations.

The move, announced by the two companies on Monday, is the largest deal in Amazon’s 20-year history and will help the U.S. e-commerce company vie with Apple Inc and Google Inc in the fast-growing world of online gaming, which accounts for more than 75 percent of all mobile app sales. 


The acquisition involves some retention agreements that push the deal over $1 billion, a source close to the deal told Reuters.

“Twitch will further push Amazon into the gaming community while also helping it with video and advertising,” Macquarie Research analyst Ben Schachter said in a note.

Twitch’s format, which lets viewers message players and each other during live play, is garnering interest as one of the fastest-growing segments of digital video streaming, which in turn is attracting more and more advertising dollars.

The deal, expected to close in the second half of the year, is an unusual step for Amazon, which tends to build from within or make smaller acquisitions. Tech rival Google was earlier in talks to buy Twitch, which launched slightly more than three years ago, one person briefed on the deal said.

Neither Amazon nor Twitch would discuss how the deal came together or comment on Google’s interest.

In an interview, Twitch Chief Executive Officer Emmett Shear said the startup contacted Amazon because its deep pockets and ad sales expertise would allow the startup to pursue its strategic objectives more quickly.

“The reason why we reached out to Amazon, the reason I thought working for Amazon, having Twitch being a part of Amazon, would be a great idea for us (because) they would give us the resources to pursue these things that we honestly already want to pursue and they’d let us do it faster,” Shear said.

Ethan Kurzweil, a partner at Bessemer Ventures, which has backed Twitch since its earliest days, said Amazon’s expertise in developer platforms through Amazon Web Services gave it a window into Twitch’s potential growth.

“They understand the power of engaged developer platforms,” he said, noting Twitch’s popularity with game developers and publishers was as important as its popularity with consumers.

Bessemer provided Twitch an introduction to Frank Quattrone, a banker at boutique investment bank Qatalyst Partners, with a view to “catalyzing interest in Twitch,” Kurzweil said.

Quattrone advised Amazon on its 1997 initial public offering.

Twitch raised $20 million in funding last September from game publisher Take-Two Interactive Software and firms such as Bessemer Venture Partners and Thrive Capital.

Other venture backers include Alsop Louie Partners and Draper Associates.

More than 55 million unique visitors viewed more than 15 billion minutes of content on Twitch in July.

Some video game live casters on Twitch have embedded links to the Amazon’s online store. Analysts said the deal may result in more product tie-ins and a deeper integration with Amazon Instant Video and Amazon devices like the Kindle Fire tablet and recently launched Fire TV set-top box.

Twitch and Amazon did not disclose details on new retail opportunities for Amazon through Twitch’s network of gamers.

“We have lots of ideas we’ve discussed, there’s a lot of interest and a number of things we can pursue,” Michael Frazzini, VP of Amazon Games, said in an interview.

(Reporting by Deepa Seetharaman and Malathi Nayak; additional reporting by

source: interaksyon.com

Amazon’s ‘Fire’ smartphone contains chips from Qualcomm, Samsung, NXP

Dismantling a just-delivered Fire handset, iFixit said on its blog on Thursday that it discovered radio frequency, power amplifier, audio and WiFi chips also from U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm. (iFixit: bit.ly/1nlJlUv)SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon.com Inc’s new “Fire” smartphone contains chips from Qualcomm Inc, NXP Semiconductors NV, and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, according to repair and teardown specialists iFixit, which pried one open on Thursday.

The Fire phone also houses chips from Synaptics Inc and Skyworks Solutions Inc, said the repair outfit, which made a name for itself taking apart devices like Apple Inc’s iPhone and identifying its internal components.

Amazon’s maiden smartphone, which includes four cameras that track a user’s head movements to enable special screen effects, ships this week to customers in the United States and is powered by a Qualcomm quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor.

The $600-plus device thrusts Amazon into a fiercely competitive smartphone market dominated by Apple and devices running Google Inc’s Android software.

It also feeds into Amazon’s core retail business. It touts a “Firefly” feature that can recognize objects and direct users to the same item on Amazon’s online store.

Apart from the quartet of head-tracking cameras, the phone also includes a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera.

The device opened by iFixit included 32 gigabytes of NAND memory chips made by Samsung for storing pictures, music and other media. The phone, which has a 4.7 inch LCD display, included 2 gigabytes of DRAM memory from Samsung.

Manufacturers of mobile hardware often employ more than one supplier for memory chips and other components in their devices.

The handset included a near field communication chip, enabling features such as mobile payments, from NXP, according to iFixit.

The Fire smartphone also employs a touchscreen controller from Synaptics, and a communications chip from Skyworks.

The “Fire” is priced at $649 contract-free or $199.99 with a contract with AT&T Inc – in the same neighborhood as the iPhone. The price is a departure from the e-commerce company’s strategy of pricing Kindle Fire tablets at near-cost to sell its other products and services. It has specifications similar to high- and mid-range smartphones and runs on a modified version of Google’s Android operating system.

source: interaksyon.com

PayPal fuels higher eBay revenue even as cyber attack, rivals weigh

SAN FRANCISCO — EBay Inc posted a 13 percent rise in quarterly revenue on Wednesday, as better-than-expected results from its fast-growing PayPal division helped the online retailer overcome increasing competition from Amazon.com Inc and a well-publicized cyber attack.

Investors had been braced for a tough quarter.

Ebay’s stock has fallen more than 8 percent since April, hurt by the cyber attack disclosed in May that compromised data for some 145 million customers, the departure of highly regarded PayPal chief David Marcus, and intensifying competition from both online and offline rivals. 


EBay was also hurt by a change in Google Inc’s algorithm, which pushed eBay results lower in search rankings, slowing traffic.

That slowdown was seen in June in a measure of transactions across eBay’s core Marketplaces platform, known as gross merchandise value, with the growth rate falling to 7 percent from around a double-digit pace in previous months.

“We had a challenging first half of the year with several distractions,” Bob Swan, the chief financial officer, told analysts on a conference call, noting that the cyber attack and the Google search engine changes “had an immediate and dramatic impact.”

Executives said eBay will spend more on measures to entice users back, including coupons, seller incentives and increased marketing.

Several investment brokerages had downgraded their forecasts ahead of Wednesday’s results. The second-quarter results and eBay’s revenue outlook were roughly in line with those tempered expectations. Revenue rose to $4.37 billion for the quarter, compared with $3.88 billion a year ago; Wall Street had forecast revenue of $4.38 billion, on average.

Payment volume leaped a better-than-expected 29 percent. Gross merchandise value grew 12 percent, in line with or slightly better than analysts’ forecasts.

Going forward, eBay will have to grapple with stiffening competition across its businesses.

Marcus departed for Facebook’s messaging team in June. The payments service faces a growing challenge from the likes of Amazon, which launched a recurring payments program in June. Google is also expected to delve further into this field. Brick-and-mortar retailers are investing to boost their online presence. EBay also has to fend off a growing coterie of fast-growing retail upstarts that focus on specific categories such as home and apparel.

Longer term, industry analysts speculate that Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd, which is going public this year in what could be the largest-ever tech IPO, is preparing to leverage its U.S. investments into a play for the U.S. retail arena, the world’s largest.

On Wednesday, eBay forecast third-quarter revenue of $4.3 billion to $4.4 billion, compared with expectations for $4.4 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

For the second quarter, it posted non-GAAP earnings per share of 69 cents, a penny better than forecasts for 68 cents.

source: interaksyon.com

Amazon launches streaming ‘Prime Music’ service

NEW YORK — Amazon began offering a streaming music service Thursday, in a move aimed at keeping customers in its orbit amid the rise in services like Pandora and Spotify.

The US online giant announced “Prime Music” will be offered free and without advertising for customers of Amazon Prime — a subscription service that includes free delivery, access to online movies and books and other advantages.

The Amazon music catalog of one million songs is far smaller than rival offerings from services such as Spotify, which has 20 million, but appears to aim at a niche of customers as a new benefit to the Amazon Prime service.

“With Prime Music, Prime members have unlimited, ad-free access to over a million songs at no additional cost to their membership,” Amazon said in a statement.

“Prime Music includes tens of thousands of albums from top artists like Daft Punk, Pink, Bruno Mars, Blake Shelton, The Lumineers, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna. And we’re just getting started — more music is being added all the time.”

Customers will also be able to download songs and playlists and listen when they are offline to avoid data charges.

The service, available for US customers as of Thursday, is unlikely to directly challenge rival music services but could bolster Amazon’s customer base and notably its “Prime” subscription service, which recently raised its annual fee for US customers to $99 from $79.

- Driving customers -

“Amazon’s future business will depend on how many times a day the company can get its customers to interact with Amazon,” said Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey.

“If you’re Pandora or even Apple, getting people to use you several times a day doesn’t really drive revenue up, but in the case of Amazon, getting the customer to interact with you several times a day leads to more frequent purchases, and that’s what Amazon has in mind with the music service.”

Amazon, which has been adding digital content to its vast retail offerings, has been rumored for months to have been working on a music service but reports said talks had been bogged down over royalties and licensing fees.

Amazon includes songs from major music labels Sony and Warner Music but talks are still ongoing with the other major publisher, Universal Music Group, according to sources familiar with the service.

But there may be gaps for some music lovers: The online news site TechCrunch said nine of the top 10 songs on the Billboard 100 were not available for streaming on Amazon.

The move comes after Apple agreed to pay $3 billion for Beats Music to boost its streaming service and compete with the likes of Spotify and Pandora.

Owners of Amazon Kindle tablets can get Prime Music in an automatic, over-the-air update and it will also be available as an app for users of Apple and Android mobile devices.

The move comes with Amazon having scheduled a media event next week, widely expected to be the unveiling of a smartphone that integrates in the Kindle family of devices.

Amazon said some of the artists available on the music service include Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, Britney Spears, Celine Dion, Elvis Presley, Eric Clapton, Green Day, Whitney Houston and Willie Nelson.

source: interaksyon.com

Amazon leaps into home entertainment fray with $99 Fire TV

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon.com Inc made a play for the increasingly crowded home entertainment arena by unveiling the $99 “Fire TV” video and game streaming device on Wednesday, with hopes of boosting its main online retail business over the longer term.

The square device, which just about fits in the palm of one hand, streams content from Netflix Inc, Hulu and other video services – much like Apple TV or Google Inc’s Chromecast.

It also offers a prominent platform for Amazon’s own fast-growing streaming video service as well as its growing slate of original television programs and games. Amazon will also sell a separate controller for gaming that costs $39.99.

Amazon, which has been building its multimedia presence to tap the growing appetite for digital media, is now jumping headlong into the heated competition for consumers’ attention and an estimated $70 billion TV ad market. It took the wraps off the Fire TV at a rare Apple-style media event in New York.

Analysts were split on Amazon’s prospects. Some said its strategy to pitch the Fire TV as an option for casual gamers would set the box apart. Others were disappointed Amazon did not undercut its rivals’ prices in keeping with its pricing strategy on the original Kindle Fire tablet.

“They created a product we didn’t need,” said Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter.

The Fire TV competes in a market that is set to grow by 24 percent this year, Strategy Analytics said. But that’s off a low base: streaming boxes have still not made much of a splash, partly because game consoles from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo — not to mention “smart” TVs and DVD players — already stream Netflix and other popular services.

Tech leaders from Microsoft Corp to Apple Inc are vying for space on the TV, the traditional family entertainment center and where Americans used to spend most of their leisure time. That has changed with the advent of the smartphone and tablet.

The device is one of several initiatives by Amazon, one of the world’s largest online retailers, to play a central role in how consumers shop and spend their leisure time. Its projects range from building more warehouses to expand its same-day delivery service to developing original television shows such as the political comedy “Alpha House” starring John Goodman.

If Fire TV takes off, it could help shape the way consumers shop online. Fire TV viewers may eventually be able to use their remote to buy a product directly off a commercial, analysts said, as Amazon’s multimedia and online retail businesses become even more integrated.

“The company will eventually want to help you buy things in the living room,” Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey said. “Only Amazon can piece that entire experience together in the living room and though we don’t see evidence of that ambition here today, we should assume Amazon knows this and is planning on it.”

While the company tried to one-up existing streaming boxes with voice-activation and a line-up of games from publishers like Electronic Arts and Walt Disney Co, some remained doubtful the Fire TV will make waves upon debut.

Johnny come lately
Amazon’s biggest previous foray into tech hardware — the Kindle e-reader — succeeded because it was an early entrant in a nascent market. But the Fire TV is a latecomer to two markets that rivals had fought over for years — gaming and home entertainment.

Amazon has to wedge itself into a market split fairly evenly between various nascent technologies, all of which are challenging cable companies’ traditional death-grip on TV viewing.

But the company promised however that Fire TV, available now on Amazon.com, would be faster and easier to use than Apple TV, Google’s Chromecast or Roku Inc’s streaming video device.

It can predict what the user will watch and cue it up, Kindle unit vice president Peter Larsen said. It also has a feature that uses data from IMDB to identify the music on screen as well as the actors and their filmography as they exit and enter the screen on TV.

“When we look at the living room, how do we make the complexity disappear?” Larsen said at a rare, Apple-style New York product launch event.

Fire TV’s remote features a microphone that enables voice-activated search. Fire TV is integrated with Hulu Plus so users can see Amazon shows from their Hulu account, and Amazon said it may bring in other partners soon.

By next month, Fire TV users will be able to play thousands of video games. Amazon decided to develop the device after reading customer complaints on its website about lagging performance, cumbersome search and closed “ecosystems” on rival set-top boxes.

source: interaksyon.com

Start-ups to receive cloud support with Amazon Web Services’ new AWS Activate

MANILA, Philippines — Start-ups can now expect a boost in their cloud adoption as Amazon Web Services launches AWS Activate.

AWS Activate bundles resources in packages, designed to enable startups of different types to easily and quickly get started with AWS and successfully use the AWS platform to help grow their businesses.

The bundle includes a structured package of resources for startups, including AWS credits, training, developer support, a special startup community forum and special offers from third parties.

“Many of the world’s most successful startups already build their businesses on the AWS cloud,” said Adam Selipsky, vice president, Amazon Web Services. “Based on feedback from VCs (venture capitalists), startups and entrepreneurs, we developed AWS Activate to help even more startup organizations get going quickly by leveraging AWS to help build their business. We’re happy to offer this to startups of all kinds from around the world today,”

AWS Activate is organized into two packages: a Self-Starter package, which any startup can apply for, and a Portfolio package, which can be applied for by startups in select accelerator, incubator, venture capital seed funds or entrepreneur organizations. Each package includes varied levels of resources to help fit customers’ needs.

Startups receiving either package get access to the Startup Forum, where AWS experts and other startup customers can share best practices. The forum gives startups a way to learn from and interact with a community of peers building world-changing apps on AWS.

In addition, startups accepted into AWS Activate may have access to special offers, such as product discounts, from select third-party companies in the AWS ecosystem, providing startups with additional valuable technologies and tools.

“Amazon Web Services has been an invaluable partner in Kickstart Ventures’ mission of helping startups in the Philippines start faster and scale,” said Minette Navarette, president, Kickstart Ventures. “The sixteen startups in our portfolio are among the best in the Philippines, and an important part of their business is the underlying cloud platform that AWS provides. AWS Activate will provide even more support and resources for our startup companies to be successful.”

source: interaksyon.com

How will Amazon’s Jeff Bezos change The Washington Post?

SEATTLE — Technology and media circles are abuzz at how e-commerce wunderkind Jeff Bezos plans to modernize The Washington Post, a money-losing bastion of the old economy.

Among the top predictions: the man who transformed retailing will want to wean the venerable paper off its print edition; expand the Post’s real-time content for a Twitter generation; share Amazon’s near-unparalleled data on online buyers; and devise novel avenues to sell anything from books to smartphones to the Post’s half a million readers.

The founder and CEO of Amazon.com Inc hasn’t given much away since he struck a deal to buy the 135-year-old paper for $250 million. But he did tell employees on Monday that they will have to “invent” and “experiment” as the Internet revolutionizes the news business.

Although Bezos, not Amazon, is buying the Post, it is widely expected that he will in some way ‘Amazon-ify’ the news business, bringing across strategies imprinted on the company he founded in a garage 19 years ago.

One thing is clear: the famed innovator is bringing enormous street cred to bear on a problem that has baffled newspaper owners for over a decade: how to reverse the ebb of advertisers to other media.

“Amazon realized information travels much faster as a digital object rather than a physical object, and now Amazon is a world leader in e-books,” said Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box, a popular online content sharing platform. “The analogy holds true for newspapers. Bezos knows that transformation incredibly well and he can help them navigate that transition.”

The first casualty of this shift will likely be newspapers themselves. Bezos remarked to a German paper last year that printed news would largely disappear in 20 years.

Bezos could emulate Netflix Inc CEO Reed Hastings, said Levie, transforming a physical distribution network into a streaming service that adapts to customers’ choices. That means more real-time news delivered via PCs, tablets and phones.

Readers can already get the Post on Amazon’s Kindle – as well as on Apple Inc’s iPad and other devices powered by Google Inc – but a closer tie-up seems likely.

One idea would be for the Post to offer news via a branded tablet, perhaps given away with a one-year subscription, much as phone companies subsidize handsets, said Thomas Russo, a partner of the Gardner Russo & Gardner investment firm, one of the biggest Washington Post Co shareholders. Amazon for a long time sold its Kindle e-readers at cost, effectively giving away a device through which buyers then access its online trove.

“With technology being what it is, that would not be financially crippling,” said Russo, adding that by moving readers off expensive printed papers, “You would have re-oriented your cost structure.”

AMAZON FOCUS

Perhaps Amazon’s greatest strength is its knowledge of customers built up through their buying history, which makes the company a very efficient marketer. That technology applied to the Post could make its advertising business much more valuable.

“Nobody knows more about Internet media distribution than Jeff Bezos,” said Richard Brandt, author of ‘One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com.’ “If anyone can figure out how to do this profitably, it is he. That will benefit the Post and, possibly, all media organizations.”

Bezos wrote in a letter to Post employees that he did not intend to get involved in day-to-day management of the paper, and would leave news production to the existing leadership team. But he did hint at a shift to a more local, personalized idea of news, which echoes Amazon’s approach to customers.

“Our touchstone will be readers, understanding what they care about – government, local leaders, restaurant openings, scout troops, businesses, charities, governors, sports – and working backwards from there,” wrote Bezos.

His purchase of the Post could be viewed as an extension of Amazon’s move towards content creation, most recently creating its own movies and TV series, which gives the company a new way of engaging with customers.

“‘News’ is the digital equivalent of a high-traffic intersection: as people pass through to figure out what’s happening they might also stop to do some shopping,” wrote Henry Blodget, founder and CEO of news site Business Insider, which Bezos has also invested in. “Content and commerce companies have long dabbled with combining the two experiences, but no one has really nailed it.”

Bezos has time to work out a formula. He has shown at Amazon that he is willing to work on ideas for years before they become profitable. And by making the purchase personal, he has removed demanding shareholders from the equation.

The Post is already one of the more prominent print publications on the web. The Washington Post Co’s online publishing activities, primarily washingtonpost.com and Slate, took in $29.8 million in revenue for the second quarter of 2013, up 15 percent from a year ago. Slate is not included in the sale to Bezos.

That is just over 20 percent of The Washington Post Co’s overall newspaper publishing revenue, but is in line with other large papers. The company earned much greater revenue from its education and cable TV operations.

“The Washington Post has already been one of the most forward-thinking newsrooms,” said Box’s Levie, citing its WaPo Labs project, a team that experiments with new ways of providing news from a ‘Social Reader’ Facebook app to the Trove personalized news gatherer, which pulls from 10,000 sources. WaPo Labs is also not included in the sale.

“They have already been fairly tech-savvy,” said Levie. “It’s a business that has to transform itself from print to digital and they’ve done a pretty good job doing so. The benefit of having an owner like Jeff Bezos is you’ll be able to continue to fund those experiments.”

source: interaksyon.com

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to buy the Washington Post

Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos will buy the Washington Post newspaper for $250 million in a surprise deal that ends the Graham family’s 80 years of ownership and hands one of the country’s most influential publications to the tech entrepreneur.

Bezos, hailed by many as a visionary who helped transform Internet retail, called his acquisition a personal endeavor and reassured Post employees and readers he will preserve the paper’s journalistic tradition, while driving innovation.

The acquisition, the latest in a flurry of recent media deals including the New York Times Co’s sale of the Boston Globe for $70 million, is a further indication of the unprecedented challenges newspapers face as advertising revenue and readership decline.

Shares of the Washington Post Co climbed more than 5 percent to $599.85 after hours – their highest level in almost five years.

“I understand the critical role the Post plays in Washington, DC and our nation, and the Post’s values will not change,” Bezos said in a letter addressed to employees and published on the newspaper’s website.

“There will of course be change at the Post over the coming years. That’s essential and would have happened with or without new ownership,” he added. “We will need to invent, which means we will need to experiment.”

Bezos, who has built Seattle-based Amazon.com into a shopping and online technology force over the last two decades, made a small foray into media earlier this year with a small investment in Internet news site Business Insider.

The Washington Post, home to journalists as the “Watergate” team of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, is among the rapidly dwindling number of U.S. newspapers with a profitable business – a function of the rapid migration of readers to Internet and other digital media sources.

Warren Buffett owns a slice of its parent company, Washington Post Co, whose operating income has plummeted almost 40 percent since 2008, to $146.2 million in 2012.

“I doubt it is a financially oriented investment for him as much as a chance to play a more important role as a steward of an important public trust/asset,” said James Barksdale, President of Atlanta investment firm Equity Investment Corp.

Barksdale said his firm did not own Washington Post shares because he thought they traded higher than he thought justified, “probably due to the Buffett halo,” he added.

Bezos will buy the Post along with other newspaper assets from the Washington Post Co. Amazon.com is to be kept separate from the Post deal, according to the Washington Post.

The deal, which caught many industry watchers by surprise, was arranged in private by Allen & Co. It comes on the heels of near-unprecedented media deal activity this year, with the Globe transaction announced just over the weekend, the Tribune Co hiving off its publishing and broadcasting businesses and the Los Angeles Times reportedly up for sale.

Graham family relinquish their claim

Washington Post Chairman and Chief Executive Donald E. Graham, whose family owns the paper, explained his decision to part ways with the publication, which will continue to be headed on a daily basis by CEO Katharine Weymouth.

“As the newspaper business continued to bring up questions to which we have no answers, Katharine and I began to ask ourselves if our small public company was still the best home for the newspaper. Our revenues had declined seven years in a row,” Graham said in his letter to employees.

“Jeff Bezos’ proven technology and business genius, his long-term approach and his personal decency make him a uniquely good new owner for the Post.”

The transaction covers The Washington Post and other publishing businesses, including the Express newspaper, The Gazette Newspapers, Southern Maryland Newspapers, Fairfax County Times, El Tiempo Latino and Greater Washington Publishing.

Bezos is the world’s 19th richest person with a fortune of $25.2 billion, according to Forbes magazine. His other major personal project is called Blue Origin, which aims to be one of the first non-government funded ventures to send people and cargo into space, potentially winning lucrative contracts that were once fulfilled by NASA.

Bezos has already spent millions of dollars on this project, with millions more in the pipeline.

He did not elaborate in great detail on his motivations behind his latest deal on Monday. But in 2009, when asked at the debut of the Kindle 2 whether the electronic-reader could help print media, Bezos said he thought there were “genuine opportunities” to save journalism.

“And we’re excited about helping with that,” he added, according to the International Herald Tribune.

source: interaksyon.com

Amazon launches Android app store in China

SHANGHAI — Amazon.com Inc launched an Android application store that offers paid apps in China, beating Google Inc, as the online retailer seeks to increase the amount of digital content it offers in the world’s largest mobile phone market.

Amazon, which opened its Kindle e-book store in China in December, launched its Android app store over the weekend for China users to download both free and paid apps, Amazon China spokesman Billy Huang said on Monday.

Google’s official app store only offers free apps in China. Google China declined to comment for this story. Android is Google’s open source mobile operating system.

Amazon’s app store must compete with hundreds of local rivals offering paid and free apps, some of them pirated, and users often worry about malware when downloading from these sites.

Amazon is the first Western technology company to offer a platform for paid Android apps in China and Huang said the company was working with software developers to increase the number of apps on offer.

Amazon China cornered less than three percent of China’s booming 169 billion yuan ($27 billion) business-to-consumer e-commerce market in the fourth quarter last year.

The launch of the app store and the Kindle e-book store in China paves the way for Amazon to offer a range of devices including the standard Kindle e-reader and the Kindle Fire.

Huang declined to comment on the Kindle’s release date in China

source: interaksyon.com

US online retailers under pressure with looming tax bill

WASHINGTON — The US Senate moved Monday toward expected approval of a bill that would subject online retailers to state sales taxes, cutting a advantage that helped them steal business from brick and mortar stores.

The bill, the Marketplace Fairness Act, represents a long fought battle by local governments and businesses to collect taxes on Internet sales to local people by outside retailers like Amazon, eBay, and other online giants.

But it also raises operating challenges for Internet businesses, especially medium-sized ones, to begin collecting tax payments for state and local jurisdictions, wherever orders originate.

Senators voted a generous 74-20 to move to debate on the bill, which suggests an easy passage, despite a stiff lobbying fight to block or alter it from online retailing power eBay.

The bill would force online retailers to collect sales taxes on purchases made in states and localities even if the retailer is not physically present there.

A 1992 Supreme Court ruling has prevented states from compelling tax collection as long as the retailer lacks a physical presence in the state.

With combined state and local sales taxes adding as much as 10 percent to the price of a good, that has given online sellers a significant advantage to local shops.

Local shops then want the bill, as do states and local governments trying to rebuild finances after the deep 2008 recession by seeking out new sources of income.

The National Retail Federation, which represents physical retailers, estimates that $24 billion worth of taxes goes uncollected due to online sales.

“It’s costing states and localities billions in lost revenue,” said Republican bill sponsor, Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi. “Now is the time for Congress to act.”

The bill would cover only retailers with more than $1 million in revenues from outside their physical base, an effort to alleviate the collection and filing burden collecting taxes from multiple jurisdictions would have on small businesses.

But the online giants Amazon and eBay have split over it. Amazon, which long fought local taxes, now has or will have a warehouses in so many areas that it backs the bill, if mainly to ensure its competitors do not have an advantage.

But eBay, the auction marketplace that is increasingly competing with amazon for direct sales of new consumer goods, over the weekend launched a broadside against the bill.

EBay chief executive John Donahoe told eBay members in an email that the bill threatened their business.

“Some lawmakers and large retailers want to impose more costs on you by mandating nationwide sales tax collection for your online business, whether you sell through eBay, other marketplaces or your own site,” Donahoe said.

The White House strongly endorsed the bill, saying it “will level the playing field for local small business retailers that are in competition every day with large out-of-state online companies.”

The influential anti-tax lobby Americans for Tax Reform issued a statement urging backers to fight the bill, saying it would extend the power of “money-hungry state legislators” to apply taxes outside their borders.

“The regulatory implications will span more than just internet based businesses.”

source: interaksyon.com

Google tests same-day delivery service in challenge to Amazon

SAN FRANCISCO — Google on Thursday began testing a service for same-day delivery of toys, clothing, groceries or other items ordered online in what could be a challenge to online retail titan Amazon.

People living in San Francisco or a swath of Silicon Valley from the cities of San Jose to San Mateo were invited to take part in “a new experiment” that the Internet colossus dubbed Google Shopping Express.

“It’s a local delivery service that we hope will make it possible for you to get the items you order online the same day, and at a low cost,” product management director Tom Fallows said in a blog post.

“The pilot will expand as we work out the kinks.”

The service is part of an effort by the Mountain View, California-based firm to “bring the speed of the Web to the real world,” according to Fallows.

People enrolled in the test program will be able to shop at a single online venue for products from retailers such as Target, Walgreens, American Eagle, Toys R Us, and San Francisco’s coveted Blue Bottle Coffee.

“So hopefully, no more trips across town for simple errands,” Fallows said.

Pricing for Google Shopping Express had yet to be determined so people testing the service were being offered six months of free, unlimited orders for same-day deliveries.

Amazon entices shoppers with a Prime service that offers free two-day shipping on orders along with online streaming of films and television shows for an annual subscription fee of $79.A

source: interaksyon.com

EBay goes after Amazon with fee changes for sellers

SAN FRANCISCO — EBay Inc said on Tuesday it will overhaul fees for sellers on its online marketplace, lowering them for many sellers as it steps up competition with Amazon.com Inc.

EBay is simplifying its “final value fees” with the percentage fee levied on each sale determined by product categories. Currently, the percentage fee is based on an item’s price.

Some of eBay’s listing fees, a bone of contention among sellers, are also going away. Most of the changes will kick in April 16, with others taking effect May 1.

Many sellers will pay lower fees after the changes, especially those who are not volume sellers and list fewer than 12,250 times per month, according to Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor, which helps merchants sell on online marketplaces including eBay and Amazon.

“These fee changes definitely make eBay more competitive,” said Wingo.

EBay’s move comes as sellers on Amazon’s marketplace become increasingly upset with fee increases.

The company’s announcement about the new fees included a table comparing its charges to Amazon’s fees, a move that Wingo said he had not seen before.

“EBay is really coming out swinging against Amazon,” Wingo added.

EBay shares rose 2 percent to close at $51.10 on the Nasdaq. Amazon slipped 0.6 percent to $256.41.

11 PERCENT CUT

For consumers who sell only a few items a year, eBay will offer 50 free listings per month. If the item sells, the company will take 10 percent of the sale price.

EBay has been using a fee structure that included a listing fee of 50 cents per item for full-price listings. The company has been offering free listings only on auctioned items.

For larger-volume sellers, eBay will introduce new final value fees ranging from 4 percent to 9 percent, depending on the product category.

Seller Phil Forman said he received an email from EBay on Tuesday morning, estimating that he would see an 11 percent decline in fees.

“I can work with an 11 percent cut,” said Forman, owner of Newtownvideo.com, which sells CDs, DVD and video games on its own website and on marketplaces including Amazon.com and eBay.com.

The reduction in listing fees should encourage sellers to list more products, getting more inventory onto eBay, he said.

“Sellers like to only pay when they actually sell something,” Forman added.

However, Forman said he was concerned because Newtownvideo.com lists many thousands of products per month, so the business may still pay some listing fees on eBay. This is because the new free listings top out at 2,500 per month for subscribers to eBay’s premium “Anchor Store” selling program, he noted.

Amazon has never charged sellers listing fees, one reason why its marketplace has been gaining strongly against eBay in recent years.

“For most of our sellers the complexity of our fees were keeping them from being on eBay and preventing them from having full transparency into their profitability from selling on eBay,” Michael Jones, vice president of merchant development, said.

“There will be some sellers who will pay a little bit more on eBay, but most sellers will be impacted positively by this,” he added.

source: interaksyon.com