Sam Blumenthal

Synthetic media allows brands to have lifelike digital mascots. Instead of an animated Ronald McDonald, customers could interact with a virtual recreation.  Digital characters will also populate stores: imagine a virtual person taking your order at a fast food drive-thru or answering your questions at the Apple Store. Artificial intelligence will... See more

Beauty has been a significant vertical for Pinterest as it encourages influencer video content. Pinterest currently has 454 million global monthly active users, according to its second-quarter financial report. Of those, 80 million users search for beauty terms each month. The platform has been specifically targeting beauty brands with its new... See more

Successful businesses end up gaining market traction with paying customers, and then get on the radar of dashboards that measure visits, sales, upsell and cross-sell, Nour said via email.  That’s when the rollup or aggregator companies, which have assembled deep domain expertise in merchandising, branding, packaging, scale, supply chain and... See more

“From the consumer side of things, the appetite for that live content increased right at the same time” as when retailers were attempting to find interactive methods to put products in front of consumers, said Matt Moorut, senior principal analyst at Gartner. “It sort of makes a perfect storm where, from both sides of the equation, there’s more of... See more

Meanwhile, AI-powered virtual hosts are foraying into the industry as they offer a cost-efficient and feasible alternative to hiring real people, according to industry insiders.

What is revolutionary about on-demand streaming in general and Netflix in particular is that the service has commoditized time: on Netflix Sunday at 9pm is no different than Tuesday at 11am or Friday at 6pm; there is no prime time. Thus Netflix will release original series all at once, because why not? Best to maximize the number of minutes over... See more