"Nirvana of Personalization"

Main Takeaways:

• Adobe moves to acquire Magento Commerce, an e-commerce platform with a massive community.

• Netflix manages to beat out everyone in a battle of the best content.

• If users agree to pay for social media, would Facebook ever change its ad-based model?

• Social media advertising may of turned Phillip into a sneakerhead.

America's Second-Hand Economy: A Tale as Old as Time.

• Phillip and Brian celebrate landing in the for "second-hand commerce."

• Second-hand commerce is not a new concept, even beyond the modern sharing economy, and online secondhand retailers like Poshmark and eBay.

• Garage sales, where people could purchase previously owned items have always been a popular form of second-hand commerce.

• In fact entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk has lauded garage sales as a great way for people to find valuable items to re-sell for profit.

• The only entity that would probably care about statistics on garage sales is the IRS. And only to be able to collect back taxes on vintage video games being resold.

Adobe and Magento: An Acquisition Made in Community Commerce Heaven:

• Adobe acquires Magento Commerce an  open-source e-commerce platform for 1.6 B. Considering Magneto' loyal community base, and growth it seems like this was a high-value buy.

• Magento posted sales of 170MM in 2017 and has done a lot to move upmarket.

• Adobe is kind of the master of enterprise level market, and has managed to get their product into every arena including business analytics, data storage, and consumer creative.

• This is the fifth straight episode about Magento, is this a Future Commerce record?

• Should Shopify be fearful of this acquisition? Shopify stock was down 4.2% at market close on the day that Adobe made this announcement.

• Perhaps Shopify should be afraid, Adobe could actually use Magento to compete with Shopify in their own market class.

• This deal is also indicative that e-commerce is not only not dead it may be what Phillip termed a "boom town".

• Also there is still tons of room for retailers to go and sell, because the retail apocalypse is still not a thing.

Netflix Rises by Changing the Face of Content Forever:

• Netflix as of this episode has surpassed all other to be the largest peer to peer content provider. It only lasted a few hours, but they beat out Disney, a company with almost one hundred years of content production.

• Netflix offers users commercial free(and ad-free) content, and really has something for everyone, from cooking shows to comedy.

• Phillip recommends a comedy special on Netflix called "Jay Acaster Repertoire"  

• Because of paid-platforms like Netflix content is able to evolve beyond just the traditional advertiser based systems, and it will be interesting to watch what this "freedom of the screen" will produce.

Is Premium Social Media the Future of Online Socialization?

• Will Facebook abandon their ad-based model in favor of a paid subscription model, and how would users react?

• If social media sites did start charging users (or offered premium accounts), it would follow the evolution of content, which through platforms like Netflix and Hulu have moved beyond being dependent on advertisers.

• Having social media sites dependent on user fees (at least in part) could lead to Facebook becoming a lot more user focused, instead of advertiser focused. This could mean more security and privacy.

Advertising on Social Media: Have Consumers Lost Their Agency to Ads?

• How do advertisers market to consumers through social media in a way that can best serve their needs?

• Phillip gives some credit to social media advertising for turning him into a stylish sneakerhead.

• Advertisers offer what looks like a sweetheart deal to consumers: give us your data, and we will help you build your best self. Is this too good to be true?

• Phillip questions whether there is choice involved: are users being suckered into buying things they like but don't need? The short answer to this is that no one really knows.

• Want to know how Facebook targets ads to users?  Facebook uses 98 personal data points to make ads as relevant as possible. Data privacy is not a thing, and Facebook users should be aware of that.

• Or is targeted advertising actually offering a better quality of life in exchange for personal data?

• Also: due to privacy concerns, Twitter is offering users the ability to turn data sharing off which can lead to different problem.

• Since Twitter like Facebook is heavily dependent on ads, Twitter users would still have to deal with ads, but it would be much broader.

• Brian says that he would much prefer relevant ads.

• So the question remains: How much of what we buy is because of ads that are specifically targeted to our data?

• GDPR may affect Facebook and Twitter's ability to use targeted advertising or push ads onto their EU customers.

• Recent lawsuits that have hit Facebook and Google (to the tune of $8.8B) may lead to sweeping enforcement. These companies will want to move quickly to avoid further litigation.

Retail Tech is moving fast and Future Commerce is moving faster.

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