Google And Amazon Same Day Delivery

Tiffany Hsu writes Google and Amazon are going head to head over Los Angeles shoppers, launching same-day delivery services in the area within days of each other.

Google said Sunday it is expanding its Google Shopping Express program to West Los Angeles and Manhattan from the Bay Area, where the offering began last year.

The service allows shoppers to go to google.com/express and shop for items to be dropped off in a time frame chosen by shoppers. Google will accept orders until 4 p.m. for delivery in the final window of 6 to 9 p.m.

There's no minimum purchase, surcharge or markup, according to Google. For now, users can sign up for a 6-month free trial or pay $4.99 per item for so-called a la carte shipping.

Google said it is still evaluating how to price the service and will allow customers to opt in to a longer-term subscription once it does.

Google is using third-party delivery agents trained through an in-person program the company calls "Courier University" that teaches agents how to greet customers at the door and how to use the mobile shopping app.

The couriers will wear Google Shopping Express uniforms and, for the most part, drive Google-branded vehicles.

"Los Angeles is a great next city for us to expand to after the San Francisco Bay Area," said Tom Fallows, product management director for the service. "While it shares many of the same attributes in terms of customer preferences and lifestyles, there are also some new challenges for us to explore, such as Los Angeles' famous traffic conditions."

In the Southland, the service will be available to residents of Culver City, Inglewood, Marina del Rey, Santa Monica, Venice, West Los Angeles and Westwood. Customers will be able to access products from Costco, Guitar Center, L'Occitane, Smart & Final, Staples, Target, Toys R Us and Walgreens.

Google said it plans to expand the program soon to Bel Air, Beverly Hills, Pacific Palisades, Playa del Rey, Playa Vista and West Hollywood.

In January, Google tested the service using its employees in the Santa Monica area. The program originated in the Bay Area, where Google is already competing with similar services from EBay and Walmart.

Los Angeles is far from an online-shopping badlands. On Friday, e-commerce giant Amazon said its own same-day delivery service was available in the area.

Amazon shoppers have access to more than 1 million items, visible by clicking the "Get It Today" filter on the left panel of Amazon's website or consolidated on amazon.com/sameday.

Many products can be ordered as late as noon for delivery before 9 p.m., the company said.

Subscribers to Amazon's Prime service will pay $5.99 per order, regardless of how many items are being purchased. Non-subscribers will shell out $9.98 to have the first product shipped, followed by a 99-cent charge for each additional purchase.

The service also kicked into motion in San Francisco, Seattle and Phoenix on Friday, Amazon said.

In June, Amazon unveiled its AmazonFresh same-day and early-morning grocery delivery service in Los Angeles after operating the program in Seattle since 2007.

The company started working with the U.S. Postal Service in November to make Sunday deliveries to Los Angeles and New York customers.

Facebook Adding Video Metrics For Business

Facebook is adding video metrics for business.

Here is the press release.

With the goal of helping you better understand how people respond to your videos on Facebook, today we're announcing that new video metrics in Page Insights and Ads Reporting are coming soon.

Today, as a Page owner, you can only see how many people started watching your video. When the new metrics roll out over the coming weeks, you will also see information like video views, unique video views, the average duration of the video view, and audience retention. These new metrics are designed to help you learn what's resonating with people and determine how to more effectively create and promote your videos on Facebook.

Here's a look at some of the upcoming new metrics:

See video views and the number of people that watched your video

We'll show both the total number of video views and the number of people who watched your video. A 'video view' is defined as a view of three seconds or more and will appear for all videos, including those that come to life as people scroll through News Feed. We've also renamed the 'video plays' metric 'clicks to play video.' These register after a person has clicked to play a video and it has started.

Understand your audience and learn what's working

The audience retention graph in Page Insights shows the level of interest in different parts of your video. Spikes in the percentage of views at a certain point may indicate that people are re-watching particular moments, whereas a dip could show the precise moment when most people lost interest and stopped watching. 

Page Insights View

These new metrics will also allow you to see the number of views that reached certain points in a video -- 25%, 50%, 75%, 95% and 100%. This information can help you discover how your video is performing and help you determine where to place key messages.

Ads Reporting View

Using the 'data breakdowns' feature in Ads Reporting, you can also learn how specific audiences responded to your video. For example, if females between 18 and 34 are a demographic you target in your campaign, the data breakdown will show the number of views you received from that demographic.

Availability

Video metrics will be available for all paid and organic videos uploaded directly to Facebook Pages and will roll out gradually over the coming weeks. To learn more, check out our video metrics definitions and best practices guide here.

Google Facees Another Lawsuit For US Mobile Search

Reuters says Consumer rights law firm Hagens Berman said it filed a nationwide antitrust class-action lawsuit against Google Inc alleging the company "illegally monopolized" the Internet and mobile search market in the United States.

The lawsuit alleges that Google has expanded its monopoly of the internet search market by pre-loading its applications onto Android mobile devices through its Mobile Application Distribution Agreements.

According to the lawsuit, Google's role in placing this suite of apps, including Google Play and YouTube, has hampered the market and kept the price of devices made by competing manufactures like Samsung Electronics and HTC Corp artificially high.

Google said Android and Google can be used independent of each other.

"Anyone can use Android without Google and anyone can use Google without Android. Since Android's introduction, greater competition in smartphones has given consumers more choices at lower prices," Matt Kallman, a Google spokesman, told Reuters.

Steve Berman, the attorney representing consumers, alleged that Google had not achieved its monopoly by offering a better search engine, but through anti-competitive placement and market manipulation.

LinkedIn Q1 Earnings

Revenue for the first quarter was $473.2 million, an increase of 46% compared to $324.7 million in the first quarter of 2013.

Net loss attributable to common stockholders for the first quarter was $13.4 million, compared to net income of $22.6 million for the first quarter of 2013. Non-GAAP net income for the first quarter was $47.3 million, compared to $52.4 million for the first quarter of 2013. Non-GAAP measures exclude tax-affected stock-based compensation expense and tax-affected amortization of acquired intangible assets.

Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $116.7 million, or 25% of revenue, compared to $83.4 million for the first quarter of 2013, or 26% of revenue.

GAAP diluted EPS for the first quarter was $(0.11), compared to GAAP diluted EPS of $0.20 for the first quarter 2013; non-GAAP diluted EPS for the first quarter was $0.38, compared to non-GAAP diluted EPS of $0.45 for the first quarter of 2013.

Facebook Audience Network

Facebook announced an expanded test of their Facebook’s Audience Network — a new way for advertisers to extend their campaigns beyond Facebook and into other mobile apps.

Here is the press release

The power of Facebook ads, off Facebook

Facebook ads work because they’re personal, relevant and easy to measure on both desktop and mobile. The Audience Network brings these same powerful features to additional app-based mobile experiences, giving marketers even more scale for their Facebook campaigns.

The Audience Network uses the same targeting available for Facebook ads today, including Custom Audiences, core audiences and lookalike audiences. It features the same measurement tools marketers use for their Facebook ads, too.

Extended reach with a single click

For marketers already running News Feed ads on Facebook, using the Audience Network takes just one click. The Audience Network will be available in all ad interfaces, as well as the API. Once a campaign is running in the Audience Network, our system handles optimization and delivery.

Ads that drive results

Ads in the Audience Network are designed to help marketers meet key business objectives, like driving app installs and engagement. To help deliver the best ads possible, the Audience Network delivers ads in three creative formats:

The Audience Network’s native format ads fit the look and feel of the respective app supporting an ad. Early tests have shown that these ads drive great performance.

Regardless of format, there’s no need to upload new creative — ads in the Audience Network use the same images you use for your ads on Facebook.

Simple insights

With the Facebook SDK or by working with a mobile measurement partner, marketers can measure app engagements and conversions, demographic information and more. The results from Facebook campaigns and Audience Network campaigns can be broken out separately to show what’s working, or results can be viewed comprehensively.

What to expect

The Audience Network is starting with advertisers looking to drive app installs or app engagement. We’ll expand to include additional marketing objectives in the future.

Since we’re still in the early phases of the Audience Network, we anticipate performance to vary at first. We expect to see performance increase as more ads, apps and publishers come onto the system.

The Audience Network will roll out to more advertisers in the coming months. If you’re interested in trying it for your mobile campaigns, reach out to your account rep or client partner to learn more.

Anonymous Login From Facebook

As I am watching the F8 Conference Mark Zuckerberg announces a new anonymous login from Facebook.

This will give folks the ability to try new apps without having to identify themselves. 

The ability to log into Facebook anonymously will be extremely popular in  my opinion.

Facebook F8 Conference Kickoff At 10:00AM PST

The live feed is at

https://f8.facebooklive.com/

I expect to hear the word Mobile 5483728 times while watching this.

Facebook's growth with mobile has been huge in the last 2 years. Expect this to be their target.