Want to catch up with what happened in the digital world this week? Our weekly Cheat Sheet fills you in on everything you missed while you scrambled to meet deadlines and put out fires.
Read about how Square Cash uses emails for transactions, Adidas’ smartwatch, Machinima’s partnership with Xbox One, Mondelez smart shelves and Trailerpop’s gamified movie trailers.
1. Square Cash lets you send money via email
With online payments on the rise, companies are doing what they can to stay ahead of the game. This week, Square launched a new service that allows users to send money to people via email — Square Cash. When sending an email, users simply include [email protected] in the CC line and write “$” followed by the amount they want to send in the subject line. By providing the appropriate information, users can send up to $2,500 per week rather than having to be limited to $250 when sending money. Compared to other payment mediums, such as PayPal and Venmo, Square Cash’s simplicity and convenience offers a better overall experience.
2. Adidas’ smartwatch for runners
This week, Adidas announced a new smartwatch that is primarily aimed at runners. The Adidas smartwatch will include a GPS feature, built-in heart rate sensor that can provide personal training based on the user’s heart rate, sensors to measure speed and distance and more. Consumers will not have to wait too long for this product — this $399 device is scheduled to launch on November 1. While other smartwatches have been created with many similar features and the ability to reach a variety of target markets, the question might be whether or not the Adidas smartwatch can take on its competitors by focusing on a small demographic.
3. Machinima’s Xbox One app
Machinima has announced its partnership with Microsoft to promote the launch of an upcoming Xbox One companion app. The new application will allow users to split the TV screen while gaming, allowing them to access additional video content that provides useful tips and guides from Machinima to help players throughout a game. Consumers will be able to download the application once Xbox One goes live on November 22. The takeaway here is that this platform will open up opportunities for brands to reach and engage people within the gaming niche.
4. Mondelez smart shelves track shopping behaviors
Mondelez International plans to bring smart shelves to grocery stores in order to monitor shoppers and identify their sex, age and purchasing patterns. The shelves can then target the shopper with customized ads that encourage a purchase decision. The smart shelves — rolling out sometime in 2015 — may seem a bit creepy, as if Big Brother is always watching, but the shelves will not capture images, videos or other personal information. So there should be no need to worry, right?
5. Trailerpop gamifying movie trailers
Watching a movie trailer the first few times can be entertaining, but then it starts to become mundane and frustrating to sit through the same trailer over and over again. Trailerpop looks to change all of that and make the viewing experience more intriguing by combining movie trailers and trivia-styled gamification. The application has more than 20,000 trailers and hundreds of thousands of trivia questions that will keep viewers absorbed in the video clip. In addition, the platform includes a social aspect that allows users to challenge one another for the highest score for each trailer. The company made an excellent move when deciding to gamify the movie trailers, but it will be interesting to see what else they have in store.
