Rishi Taparia - Issue #5
Greetings from Singapore! In this week’s issue: Amazon v. retailers, Alipay says “smile”, Alibaba vs. Amazon but not in commerce, Facebook’s massive scale illustrated in a way you probably didn’t think about, the key to happiness (hint: spend money outsourcing tasks) and more. Enjoy!
Commerce
Amazon Doesn’t Need to Make Money on Groceries, Putting Pressure on Wal-Mart, Kroger
Amazon is bringing it’s online playbook into offline, cutting prices and squeezing margins for traditional players. However, unlike online, offline habits and routines die hard. How low will prices have to go to make customers update their weekend routines?
Macy’s, Best Buy expanding same-day delivery service
I can only imagine the number of resources at various retailers that must be dedicated to “Beat Amazon” and compete with the Everything store. In the latest installment, Macy’s and Best Buy are partnering with startups including Bay Area based Deliv to improve their same day delivery efforts.
To Survive in Tough Times, Restaurants Turn to Data-Mining
Using data to help business is one of those ‘duh’ things in today’s economy. However, just because it’s common sense doesn’t mean it’s always easy or convenient to do it. An interesting look into restaurants’ usage of data. My favorite line from the article - Sisha Ortuzar, Mr. Colicchio’s partner at ‘Wichcraft. “They’re distractions. We just want to get back to making sandwiches.”
FinTech
Alipay Launches ‘Smile to Pay’ for Commercial Use in China
Alipay rolling out payments beyond QR codes, using biometrics and facial recognition. Smile for the register?
Singapore to develop common QR code for payments
Everyone seems to be waking up to the QR code payment, and as previously discussed, wants to do it themselves. Singapore is now jumping into the fray, creating a task force that is tasked with developing a common QR code that will facilitate payments among different schemes, e-wallets and banks. I wish them luck, but in this market I don’t even think these guys could make it work.
Amazon is a threat to banks - just not in the way you think
Amazon is disrupting banks, but not because they’re stealing customers. As they’re becoming more and more dependent on public clouds like Amazon Web Services, the balance of power slowly swings away.
Burger King launches WhopperCoin digital currency
Left here without comment. Because I really have no words.
Technology
Cloud Wars: Alibaba becomes 2nd largest hosting company
Alibaba is competing with Amazon in more ways than one. Alibaba Cloud (fka Aliyun), has just become the second largest hosting company in the world. Now, while Alibaba Cloud is still half the size of Amazon, the kicker is 93% of their business is in China. As they start to look outward, this will be another fascinating battle between two global tech giants.
Inside Waymo's Secret World for Training Self-Driving Cars - The Atlantic
A long, albeit fascinating read on Waymo, XXVI’s (fka. Alphabet fka. Google) autonomous car division and how they train the systems through Carcraft.
Facebook Debuts Gatekeeper System to Speed Up Coding Efforts
Facebook debuted its Gatekeeper system intended to speed up the company’s big coding efforts.
“Once the code is ready, it goes out to only 2% of Facebook users. If nothing breaks, it then rolls out to everyone.”
2,000,000,000 x 2% = 40,000,000 –> that’s how they Facebook software. On 40 million people. No big deal.
Random Tidbits
China’s Factory Activity Gauge Rebounds in August
An official gauge of China’s factory activity rose in August. However, with the yuan appreciation over the last year, new export orders declined. As China continues to drive global economic growth, this number will be a key indicator.
Want to Be Happy? Buy More Takeout and Hire a Maid, Study Suggests
A recent study suggests that spending money not on material goods, but on things you dread doing or view as time wasters, yield greater happiness. According to this study, this actually holds true across the income spectrum. If you’re a startup in the food delivery, house cleaning or grocery delivery space, start shouting from the rooftops!