Ready Player Three
The battle between paper and plastic has gone on for so long that a third player has entered the game. With the recent spate of card theft involving Target, Home Depot, Morgan Chase and others in recent years, and credit-card fraud totaling $7.9 billion in 2014, tech bigwigs Google, Apple and Samsung are making it easier to pull out your smartphone to pay for stuff at the register.
Join the club
If you’re in the 12% of businesses who haven’t jumped on the content-marketing bandwagon, then it may be time to sit down and work out a new strategy. And once you do, you’ll want to do the content-marketing shindig properly, lest you become part of the one-third of content marketers who don’t think their strategy is working out. In short, there’s plenty of room for improvement.
Mini-Me never had it so good
Picture Dr. Evil putting his pinky to the corner of his mouth and gleefully exclaiming: “One BILLION DOLLARS!” That’s how much SoFi – or SoftBank Group’s Social Finance – has reeled in in the largest single financing round in the Fintech craze to date. Even more surprising was a quote from SoFi CEO Mike Cagney, who said they actually had to cap the financing as it was getting (gasp!) too large.
Should you believe the hype?
On the other hand, doesn’t a billion dollars for a single Fintech operation sound a little, well, silly? With $14 billion in total invested in Fintech startups in the last year, the question has been raised as to whether or not Fintech is just a bubble. Perhaps it’s here to stay, thanks to a fertile financial climate that seeded this new phenomenon. Check out this fascinating in-depth analysis of a trend that’s turning a centuries-old industry on its head.
War! What is it good for?
Well, it’s good for the study of it, anyway. Sun Tzu must have had one hell of a crystal ball considering his book, The Art of War, is still being used as a strategy guide in many different circles today. Now with local SEO, PPC and other marketing acronyms becoming a mainstay in today’s business, let’s take a look at what we can learn from traditional military strategy in maximizing ROI online.
Until next week, work on your nom de guerre…and don’t make it Austin Powers…
