Richard Smullen says a painfully long wait for a Delta Air Lines customer service rep inspired him to join the world of artificial intelligence. One night about a year ago, having grown tired of waiting for a phone operator to change his flight, he turned to the airline's mobile app—only to find he had to scroll through pages upon pages, unable to get what he needed. In the middle of a formal dinner at the time, he decided it would be faster just to message his sister and have her do it for him. It took her two minutes. "I had kind of an epiphany moment, and this idea arose," he explained. Smullen founded Pypestream, a 50-person firm that makes automated messaging services for companies around the world. Its mobile platform, which launched this past December, has already amassed 3,500 clients in 50 countries, ranging from utilities like Washington Gas to publishers like Billboard. Pypestream joins a growing number of startups using automated messaging to help consumers do everything from hailing cabs to paying bills. Some say these services, known as chatbots, could be the biggest digital to-do since mobile apps. The bots are forms of artificial intelligence that create personalized one-to-one interactions. "I think you're going to see a bot explosion," predicted Beerud Sheth, CEO of messaging platform Gupshup. "I think it's safe to say that this is the year of the bot. All the technology pieces are in place." That explosion is expected to get even more fuel next... Continue reading at 'AdWeek'
[ AdWeek | 2016-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
TV lovers who tweet can have real-time and potentially very profitable benefits for shows and advertisers, according to newly updated research from Twitter. The TVxTwitter Playbook features research from Twitter compiled using its own internal data as well as data from Nielsen and others. ... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2015-09-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The Muppets is just one of several freshman shows with a pre-sold brand the networks hope give them an edge this fall. The prime-time schedule includes two movie adaptations (Fox's Minority Report, CBS' Limitless), a spinoff (NBC's Chicago Med), a revival (NBC's Heroes Reborn) and a comic book... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2015-09-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Virtual reality is an extraordinarily hot topic right now in media and technology circles. We've seen some amazing developments in recent years, but for the purposes of marketers, technology has not caught up with needs. Beyond functioning, we need it to scale and affect consumer behavior. This... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2015-09-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
As she kicks off her third year at the helm of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer is courting advertisers aggressively. She met with 500 advertising and agency executives, representing 350 brands, during the second quarter.And during Advertising Week on Thursday, the CEO worked to convince marketers that her... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2014-10-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Independent which brought the Millennium trilogy to millions of English-language readers puts company up for saleThe publisher behind The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, independent press Quercus, has put itself up for sale in what it has described as a "challenging" and "increasingly competitive"... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-01-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Gooseberry Patch, originally founded in 1984 as a mail-order catalogue company selling old-fashioned, country-style products, began publishing cookbooks in 1992, but the Delaware, Ohio, company almost didn’t make it through the Great Recession. “Gooseberry Patch ran headlong into the economic... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-04-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this