Marketing TechnologyMartech news roundup: Amazon acquires CloudEndure $250M, an egg beats Kylie Jenner, new Intel AI products

Martech news roundup: Amazon acquires CloudEndure $250M, an egg beats Kylie Jenner, new Intel AI products

We review the top news in martech from the week of December 31, 2018–January 7, 2019.

In our roundup of last week’s martech news, we highlight:

  • Amazon to acquire advanced computing platform CloudEndure for $250 million. CloudEndure is based in Israel and this hints at Amazon’s interests in expansion beyond the US.
  • A picture of an egg — just a regular egg — beat Kylie Jenner’s birth announcement as the most liked post on Instagram last night. 30 million likes and counting.
  • Intel announced at CES 2019 two particularly interesting new products. With Facebook, they’re working on a more cost-efficient AI chip to accelerate machine learning capabilities. With Alibaba, they’re working on an athlete tracking technology to be deployed at the Olympics 2020.

Top stories in marketing technology last week:

Amazon will acquire CloudEndure for $250 million

What it is

CloudEndure is an Israel-based advanced computing platform. They specialize in things including:

  • Disaster recovery
  • Continuous, limitless data backup
  • Data migration without a server switch-off

Why it matters

This move demonstrates Amazon’s interest in expanding their reach beyond the US.

It also aligns with their dominance in the cloud product market. This acquisition will likely benefit Amazon’s cloud users by helping streamline the process of moving data from one cloud to another.

Amazon Web Services (their cloud product) holds 52% of the market, as compared to against (13%), Alibaba (5%), and Google (3%).

An egg beat Kylie Jenner’s birth announcement as the most liked post on Instagram

What it is

A picture of an egg — just a regular egg — is the most-liked post on Instagram as of last night, Sunday January 13.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BsOGulcndj-/

The egg’s profile, @world_record_egg, has just that one post, and 3.7 million followers.

Their description simply reads, “Official world record holders of the most liked picture on Instagram. Now where’s our blue tick?”

Why it matters

The egg was posted on January 4. We’re not sure why the people behind this account chose an egg, nor how it gained such traction.

Further proof that people are weird, content goes viral for inexplicable reasons, and social media management is a wild thing.

Or as @world_record_egg themselves added in the comments of the post, “What a time to be alive.”

CES 2019: Intel working with Facebook and Alibaba on cheaper AI chip and athlete tracking tool

What it is

At CES 2019, Intel announced two particularly interesting new products in the works.

With Facebook, they’re working on a new, cost-efficient AI chip called Nervana Neural Network Processor for Inference (NNP-I).

The chip will essentially accelerate the production and deployment of machine learning for companies such as — obviously — Facebook.

With Alibaba, Intel will be developing a technology that tracks athletes. It will apparently use deep learning to extract 3D forms of athletes in training or competition. They hope to deploy this tool at the Olympic Games 2020.

Why it matters

CES this year boasted a lot of shiny new products and plans. These two announcements from Intel struck me because we often forget the companies, such as Intel, who power so much of what we use today.

They invented the microprocessors found in most personal computers, such as laptops by Apple, Lenovo, Dell, and HP.

They do semiconductors, microchips, cognitive computing, deep learning, autonomous driving, and probably much else.

In an industry of excessive hype, they’re one of the companies that you’d be more inclined to believe can really make something new.

Before you go

  • The President and CLO of Microsoft, Brad Smith, gave his top 10 tech predictions for 2019 on LinkedIn.
  • Nielson’s Total Ad Ratings will now include YouTube Mobile audiences — important data to which Google did not used to allow access. Now, marketers will be able to more easily compare TV and digital ad performance.
  • HubSpot announced an integration with Zoom Video Communications to help customers have better meetings and use more video in their marketing and sales.
  • Does Netflix’s interactive “Bandersnatch” foreshadow the future of video content?
  • Will 2019 be the year that voice commerce catches up to voice search?
  • Google’s biggest search algorithm updates of 2018: An infographic.

Ps: Entries for the Marketing Technology Awards 2019 are open through January 25!

See something we missed? Leave us a comment below!

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