Amazon

Amazon just announced a wave of new Alexa-equipped Echo devices. There’s a wall clock that lets you set timers, something called Echo Input that let’s you add an Alexa/Echo to an existing speaker via Bluetooth or 3.5mm headphone jack. There’s an Echo subwoofer and Echo Amp (think stereo equipment), and an Echo smart plug (use your voice to turn things on and off).

But my favorite? The Amazon Alexa Microwave. Yes, a microwave that lets you use your voice instead of pressing buttons. And it’s only $59.99.

I expect this thing to fly off the shelves, especially to college students. I wonder how long it will be until one of these devices makes its way into a movie or TV show plot. The microwave ships November 15th, in plenty of time for the holidays.

Rani Molla, Recode:

If it feels like Amazon’s site is increasingly stuffed with ads, that’s because it is. And it looks like that’s working — at least for brands that are willing to fork over ad dollars as part of their strategy to sell on Amazon.

Jump to the recode article and look at the sample images, especially that big search result for “cereal”. Amazon has long had sponsored ads, but this new move makes it that much harder to find genuine (not paid-for) results.

Amazon, squeezing out every penny.

Andrew J. Hawkins, The Verge:

Amazon announced today a new service that gives its couriers access to a person’s vehicle for the purpose of leaving package deliveries inside. But rather than use smart locks and a cloud-connected camera to gain entry, Amazon wants to use the connected technologies embedded in many modern vehicles today. The company is launching this new service in partnership with two major automakers — General Motors and Volvo — and will be rolling out in 37 cities in the US starting today.

Amazon creep, first through your front door, and now into your car. Interesting liability issue. If something goes wrong with an in-house delivery, presumably the Amazon camera would be theft deterrent, obvious evidence, and proof of delivery.

But that’s missing with an in-car delivery. You could minimize an issue by emptying your trunk first. But many cars give you access to the main car compartment once you can open the tailgate or trunk lid. And there’s no cloud-based camera to prove delivery catch theft.

It’ll be interesting to watch this unfold.

Side note: Audi and Amazon did a test-run of this back in 2015.

Washington Post:

On Amazon, customer comments can help a product surge in popularity. The online retail giant says that more than 99 percent of its reviews are legitimate because they are written by real shoppers who aren’t paid for them.

But a Washington Post examination found that for some popular product categories, such as Bluetooth headphones and speakers, the vast majority of reviews appear to violate Amazon’s prohibition on paid reviews. Such reviews have certain characteristics, such as repetitive wording that people probably cut and paste in.

OK, this is pretty old news. Terrible news, but fake reviews have been around for some time. But:

Many of these fraudulent reviews originate on Facebook, where sellers seek shoppers on dozens of networks, including Amazon Review Club and Amazon Reviewers Group, to give glowing feedback in exchange for money or other compensation. The practice artificially inflates the ranking of thousands of products, experts say, misleading consumers.

Amazon does periodic purges to wipe out those reviewers, but:

But the ban, sellers and experts say, merely pushed an activity that used to take place openly into dispersed and harder-to-track online communities.

There, an economy of paid reviews has flourished. Merchants pledge to drop reimbursements into a reviewer’s PayPal account within minutes of posting comments for items such as kitchen knives, rain ponchos or shower caddies, often sweetening the deal with a $5 commission or a $10 Amazon gift card. Facebook this month deleted more than a dozen of the groups where sellers and buyers matched after being contacted by The Post. Amazon kicked a five-star seller off its site after an inquiry from The Post.

And:

Suspicious or fraudulent reviews are crowding out authentic ones in some categories, The Post found using ReviewMeta data. ReviewMeta examines red flags, such as an unusually large number of reviews that spike over a short period of time or “sock puppet” reviewers who appear to have cut and pasted stock language.

For example, of the 47,846 total reviews for the first 10 products listed in an Amazon search for “bluetooth speakers,” two-thirds were problematic, based on calculations using the ReviewMeta tool. So were more than half of the 32,435 reviews for the top 10 Bluetooth headphones listed.

Nice work by the Washington Post here. Just another example of everything is broken. Sigh.

Buzzfeed:

Owners of Amazon Echo devices with the voice-enabled assistant Alexa have been pretty much creeped out of their damn minds recently. People are reporting that the bot sometimes spontaneously starts laughing — which is basically a bloodcurdling nightmare.

Step through the article, read the tweets. This has all the elements of a next-gen horror movie. I can’t help but wonder if there’s IoT hacking going on here, if there’s not someone having a good laugh over this.

Or ghosts. Yeah, probably ghosts.

Amazon Help:

Amazon Logistics (AMZL) may take a photo on delivery when a package is left unattended. Capturing delivery photos is intended to help customers see that their package was safely delivered and where. The photo will focus on the placement of the package. If a photo on delivery is captured, it may show up when you track a package from Your Orders.

And here’s a tweet showing the customer experience:

https://twitter.com/Heather_PLS/status/905932416774168576

This has all sorts of implications. First off, is this a sign that Amazon will shift its stance on refunds when packages are stolen off the porch? Currently, Amazon sends a replacement, no questions asked. Is the value here purely for notifications, or will Amazon use this as proof and, combined with their drop the package inside your house Key program, shift responsibility of package theft to the homeowner?

But there’s also a massive data collection effort underway. Amazon is creating an army of workers who are being trained to take pictures of people’s houses. As is, this is valuable mapping data. But to me, this also hints at a huge potential next step. Amazon might use this camera-laden workforce to take other pictures. Not suggesting something nefarious, more saying they might create a powerful database that can be used for queries like:

• Here’s a picture of a house, what’s the address?
• How many houses have electronic doorbells installed?

Huge potential.

ElevationLab blog:

When someone goes to the lengths of making counterfeits of your products, it’s at least a sign you’re doing something right. And it deserves a minute of flattery.

But when Chinese counterfeiters tool up and make copies of your product, send that inventory to Amazon, then overtake the real product’s buy box by auto-lowering the price – it’s a real problem. Customers are unknowingly buying crap versions of the product, while both Amazon and the scammers are profiting, and the reputation you’ve built goes down the toilet.

And if you’ve paid Amazon a boat load of money to advertise the product you’ve designed, built, invested in, and shipped – it’s further insult to injury. And when new counterfeit sellers keep popping up every week so you have to play whack-a-mole with Amazon, who take days to remove the sellers, it’s the beginning of the end for your small business.

Follow the headline link, take a look at the picture, a screen capture of an Amazon listing. Can you tell that this is a counterfeit? It says ElevationLab, in the form of a link, right above the product name. In this image, the product is sold by “suiningdonghanjiaju Co Ltd”. According to ElevationLab, they do not sell to wholesalers, so (the way I read it) if it’s not sold by ElevationLab, it’s counterfeit.

I went onto Amazon and looked up the product myself. Here’s a link. When I looked it up, I got a product sold by Crystal Sylvain, but with the same ElevationLab link at the top. Presumably, this is a counterfeit as well, perhaps an alt version of “suiningdonghanjiaju Co Ltd”.

How are we supposed to tell? I want to support the original designer/maker, not help rip them off and put them out of business.

Infuriating.

Glenn Fleishman, Fast Company:

Every part of the U.S. has a different local term for a convenience store: the bodega, the corner store—even “the Wawa,” a chain name that Northeasteners use generically. Now Amazon wants to extend its brand to the notion of a grab-and-go shop with Amazon Go, a store that literally lets you grab and go.

And:

Amazon Go works like—well, like a physical manifestation of Amazon’s 1-Click checkout, where you “click” by taking an item off a shelf. On arrival, you launch the Go app, which comes out today for iPhones and Android phones and connects to your Amazon account. It displays a 2D code that you scan at one of several glass security gates. The code identifies you to the store and opens the gate.

And:

Once you’re in, AI algorithms start to track you and everything you pick up and keep. You can bag your items as you go if you so choose, and need interact with an employee only if you’re buying alcohol, in which case an associate standing in the liquor area will check your ID.

And:

I tested the system by picking up a can of LaCroix water and leaving the store. It was a non-event, which is sort of the point. The experience doesn’t feel like an act of advanced technology unless you scan the ceiling and notice the hundreds of matte-black cameras surveying the shopping floor below.

This is the future of retail. Or, at least, a major step along that path. Two things occur to me:

• This is a direct example of AI eliminating the need for specific jobs. Clearly, there are plenty of employees in the chain here, both in building out the store and designing and coding the AI itself. But those jobs are front loaded. Once the stores are built, and the AI in place, this will require very few people to run.

• What happens if someone gets hold of your Amazon login info and goes on a spree through a store? If someone uses my credit card fraudulently, my credit card company covers me 100%. Does Amazon have a similar policy?

This is a great read.

Here it comes. Now that you’ve invested in this useful tech, found a nice place for it in your workflow, we’re going to start serving up ads.

Makes me wonder if the original Echo shipped with a disclaimer that ads might be part of the experience. If not, seems like a liability for Amazon, potential for a law suit. Either way, this seems like a decidedly negative turn in that particular road.

MadGeniusClub:

Since Amazon first opened its virtual doors, there have been concerns about reviews. Not just for books but for all the products sold through its site. It is no secret that authors have paid for reviews — and some still do. Or that there have been fake accounts set up to give sock puppet reviews. There have been stories about sellers and manufacturers planting fake reviews as well, all in the hopes of bolstering their product rankings and ratings

And:

Amazon now requires you to purchase a minimum of $50 worth of books or other products before you can leave a review or answer questions about a product. These purchases, and it looks like it is a cumulative amount, must be purchased via credit card or debit card — gift cards won’t count. This means someone can’t set up a fake account, buy themselves a gift card and use it to get around the policy.

This certainly will help combat mass fake reviews, since they will no longer be free. As to paid reviews, don’t see how this will change that practice. Here’s a link to Amazon’s official policy page.