This week the world of tech presented us with a couple of mouthwatering heavyweight showdowns: Google Shopping vs. Amazon, and TikTok vs. Facebook.
Are the champions’ reigns at an end? Will we see new kings crowned in ecommerce and short-form video? There’s only one way to find out… FIGHT!
Google as the underdog? Not for long.
Let’s cut straight to the chase: thanks to a rather significant redesign and feature rollout, Google Shopping is in better shape than ever as it squares up fairly convincingly to Amazon, the long-established online shopping “go to” for millions of people. That redesign includes the very exciting Google Lens image recognition technology, which opens up a whole world of possibilities.
Google Shopping users can now take a photo of an item of clothing or outfit, have it identified, find out who else is wearing it, where it might be stocked, peruse fashion pairing advice, and review similar or related items—all in one app! The implications for e-retailers are incredible.
Of course, Amazon has always dominated ecommerce, partly because of how easy it is to have all products available (and purchasable) from a single interface. If Google can provide the same convenience with the added innovation of the Lens, how will Amazon respond to maintain dominance? As a Prime member since 2013, I’m excited to find out.
In the meantime (shameless plug incoming!), find out how Google and Amazon are going toe-to-toe in another increasingly ubiquitous arena—voice search—with our completely free voice search white paper.
The clock is TikTokking for Zuckerberg and co.
TikTok is the next hopeful contender for our consideration. No, we’re not talking about the Ke$ha song from nearly a decade ago—this is the upstart platform where users can share videos between 15 and 60 seconds in length.
Starting life as Musical/ly, where teens lip synced to pop songs—alongside creative content from stand ups, skateboarders, musicians, and magicians—TikTok has become the holy grail for anyone focusing on the notoriously fickle “tween” market. Its mission? To be seen as “the leading destination for short-form mobile video”.
Building on this base and filling the gap in the market left by the demise of Vine, TikTok has amassed a staggering amount of users in a relatively short space of time. Who saw that coming? Well, we did.
In a recently released audio recording, Mark Zuckerberg was asked his “plan of attack” to address TikTok’s success over his own equivalent app, Lasso. (And you only have to look at the numbers to understand how hard TikTok is dominating, with 40m users in the US alone compared to just 70k+ for Lasso.)
Apart from credible speculation that Zuckerberg doesn’t actually know what TikTok is, it seems that his plan of attack is simply to release and promote Lasso in markets that don’t yet have TikTok. The intent, presumably, is to conquer the landscape before the rival arrives. But with TikTok so dominant in massive territories like China, India, and the US, will it be enough for Facebook to sweep up the other, smaller markets? Or will Lasso be the next Vine?
Either way, we know that video has become a crucial part of engaging modern audiences, both B2B and B2C. Whether it’s establishing a YouTube production pipeline, conducting and recording your own thought-leadership webinars, or taking advantage of the short-form factor offered by new platforms, the opportunities create compelling video content have never been more plentiful—especially for brands that use the psychology of selling to take viewers on a journey from from emotion to logic.
Want to put the power of video at your brand’s fingertips? All you have to do is ask. Contact DAC today.
