Zoom announces features freeze
Virtual webinar and video conferencing platform, Zoom, has announced a 90-day freeze on new features while it develops security and privacy patches.
The platform has come to the fore as businesses pivot to online and people embrace working from home en masse in response to distancing measures ordered around the world to limit the spread of coronavirus. The company said its daily meeting participants grew from 10 million in December to 200 million in March.
However, security flaws were discovered with the Zoom iOS app last week. In response, the vendor removed the Facebook SDK from the app after reports it was sending data to the social network, even for people without a Facebook account. In addition, two other holes were discovered, which, if exploited, could be used by hackers to take control of webcams and microphones on Mac computers running Zoom.
Separately, researchers found a security vulnerability from the platform’s ‘waiting room’ pre-meeting feature and that its end-to-end encryption could be stronger.
Zoom has said it will undertake a comprehensive review with third-party experts to verify user security and release a transparency report outlining requests for user data from law enforcement and governments.
Longtail UX raises AU$5 million in funding round
Australian SaaS startup, Longtail UX, which is a tool to connect searchers to products in a click, has announced $5 million in new capital in a funding round led by Investec through its Investec Emerging Companies Fund I (IEC Fund I).
This fresh round of funding was completed in two stages and includes a November 2019 $1.5m bridging round.The extra investment will be used to accelerate international expansion and deliver a full self-service platform.
The company has its sights set on the US, Japan, the EU and China in particular.
Longtail's flagship customers locally include Adore Beauty, Booktopia, Dan Murphy’s, Kogan and Woolworths Group.
Longtail UX offers search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimisation (SEO) technology that uses long tail search terms to connects searchers to the exact matching products for each word with one click. All matching results are displayed together on optimised landing pages, and the system allows the client/website owner to programatically add store listings, maps, articles, reviews and any other type of content directly related to the user search query to the landing pages at scale.
Loyalty outfit Currency Alliance expands into Australia
Europe-based SaaS loyalty currency business, Currency Alliance, is expanding into Australia.
The ecosystem created by Currency Alliance aims to create more liquidity with loyalty point currencies to be more appealing and attract engagement from a wider audience of customers. Brands can connect their existing loyalty platform via an API, paying 2 per cent of the loyalty transaction value, with no long-term contracts or upfront costs.
Currency Alliance clients include Air France/KLM, Melia Hotels, Under Armour, Air Arabia, Air Asia, Vietnam Airlines and Live Nation. Beyonde, a company created to help deliver ‘what’s next’ in customer experience to Australian businesses and established by customer loyalty management consultancy, Ellipsis & Co, will bring this customer experience solution to the local market.
Rubicon Project and Telaria complete merger
Global advertising exchange, Rubicon Project, and Telaria, the software platform for optimising yield for video publishers, have completed their merger.
The deal creates the largest independent sell-side advertising platform and will enable thousands of publishers to connect with buyers and brands, creating a global, independent alternative to walled gardens in the ecosystem. In addition, the combined company will be an omnichannel partner for buyers across formats, screens and geographies.
Verint releases new COVID-19 tool
Verint is providing a COVID-19 rapid response effort to complement its interaction analytics solution for organisations needing immediate and ongoing insight into the impacts of the pandemic on customers and employees now mostly working from home.
Verint’s COVID-19 analytics support is configured out-of-the-box with a set of 13 pre-built categories which can be imported into an existing Verint speech analytics solution, providing timely and valuable insights to improve responsiveness. The solution is aimed at helping organisations develop a coordinated, data-driven response to customer concerns, update agents on answers to key issues and customer queries, and surface real-time insights and analysis during COVID-19.
HubSpot's new two-tier CMS play
HubSpot has taken the wrappers off CMS Hub, a content management system designed to scale with growing businesses.
CMS Hub is available in two tiers, Enterprise and Professional, and is part of the vendor's platform suite, which also includes Marketing, Sales, Service and CRM hubs.
The Professional tier of CMS Hub encompasses a globally hosted CDN, 24/7 threat monitoring, and a Web application firewall built-in. There are also drag-and-drop editors, multi-language support and flexible website themes and modules in template form. Other capabilities include A/B testing, SEO recommendations, and contact attribution reporting.
The Enterprise tier of CMS Hub includes all features found in Professional and also includes personalised Web app functionality as well as the ability to create membership websites fuelled by customer data in the HubSpot CRM. There's also activity logging, content partitioning, user permissioning and multiple domain capabilities.
Airship announces new product
Customer engagement outfit, Airship, has released a new visualisation tool, Airship Journeys, which simplify real-time cross-channel customer experiences.
The new product is designed to drive app acquisition, reduce churn, maximise engagement, drive conversions and advance lifestyle goals in real-time.
Using this tool, marketers can highlight underperforming campaigns with high-level views of performance and journey relationships and simply modify messages to improve performance or connect journeys to advance other marketing goals.
Taboola collaborates with Moat on attention analytics platform
Discovery platform, Taboola, has announced a collaboration with Moat by Oracle Data Cloud, the real-time attention analytics platform.
The partnership gives Taboola advertisers the ability to purchase video impressions on an outcome-based method, including viewable or video completion events.
As part of the collaboration, Taboola video advertisers have the ability to only pay for impressions that meet the desired outcome, ensuring advertisers only pay for viewed impressions when buying on a vCPM model, and when buying on a CPCV model, advertisers will only pay when their ad has reached their desired completion point, with both verified by Moat.
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