Amazon Court Ruling Could Affect Your Online Store

Ability to Create a Twitter Space Rolling Out 

Twitter's answer to Clubhouse, which it calls Spaces, may be just days away from a full launch. Some accounts are now about to create a Space. I got that ability last night.

If you want to check to see if you have it, tap and hold the Compose New Tweet button on the mobile app, and you will see a Spaces icon. All you do then is give your Space a name, and you're on!

This could cost Clubhouse a big share of usage. Remember, many of the most popular Clubhouse rooms are hosted by people who have large Twitter followings. 

And Clubhouse is still invitation-only, and only works on iPhones.

As they say in the newspaper business, watch this Space.

Twitter Rises to 199 Million Daily Actives

Twitter reported its financials for the first quarter of this year. 

They're now up to 199 million Monetizable Daily Active Users, getting some growth momentum back after a small slowdown in the previous quarter.

In terms of revenue, Twitter was up 28% year-over-year, crossing the $1 billion mark for the quarter. They specifically pointed out demand for ads promoting mobile apps was strong.

The company says it doesn't expect Apple's changes to have a major impact for its advertisers, but they're in a kind of wait-and-see position — like we all are.

This will be a big year for Twitter — Spaces is out, I'm sure there'll be some kind of video format to challenge TikTok, we already know they're working on a so-called Super-Follow which will monetize tweets, plus their integration soon with the email newsletter product they bought.

[More at SocialMediaToday.com] 

Amazon's Ad Sales Soar 77% 

I guess this shouldn't be a surprise — Amazon continues to benefit from the stay-at-home economy. 

The revenue they got [PDF] from ad sales jumped 77% from a year earlier in the first three months of this year. When you factor in revenue from everything else, they were up 44%.

One interesting note: Nobody talks much about Amazon Prime Video, which is their Netflix competitor, but apparently streaming hours climbed 70% year over year.

As good as those numbers are, nobody's quite sure what's next, especially with people slowly returning to their offices, or travelling more.

Even so, eMarketer says it expects Amazon's U.S. ad business will grow 30% this year to exceed $20 billion for the first time, and will surpass $30 billion by 2023. Almost all of which at the expense of Google.

Amazon Liable for Bad Marketplace Deals: Court

So while the accountants are bringing Jeff Bezos good news, the lawyers are most certainly not.

You might recall last year, a California appellate court ruled that Amazon was liable for marketplace items it fulfilled.

Now, an appeal of a different case has gone even further — California ruling this week that this liability even applies if Amazon doesn’t do the fulfilment. 

This could have a huge impact on any of these marketplaces — and might even provide you with a bit of a shield if you sell things on them.

The case was brought by a woman who was surfing Amazon for a hoverboard for her son. She found one she liked and ordered it. Amazon took payment, sent the details to the manufacturer, named TurnUpUp, and that manufacturer handled the shipping. But it didn't get there in time for Christmas.

The court ruled that Amazon can't shuffle responsibility — because the manufacturer wasn't allowed to communicate with the customer directly. Everything, including returns, had to go through Amazon.

Amazon claimed it was basically just an online mall.

But, as Eric Goldman wrote on his blog:

That ruling was in California. In Illinois, a different case last month — coincidentally also about a hoverboard — reached a different finding. The court wrote: "the key criterion for being a seller is exercising control over the product, not over the purchasing process."

Is YouTube Not Even Playing Fair?

The online video site Roku today said it would no longer allow new users to use the YouTube app, after claiming YouTube overplayed its hand in negotiations.

Quoting Techcrunch:

Roku also said YouTube's parent company was asking for more customer data than industry standard practices, and said if Roku didn't take the deal they'd increase the hardware requirements for YouTube, which could mean Roku's players wouldn't be able to play vidoes.

A Google spokesperson disputed the claims.

Lightning Round

• Instagram is rolling out two new features for IG Live - the ability to mute your audio during a live-stream, and the option to switch off your video during the live broadcast. This is, of course, a response to Clubhouse and Spaces and all the rest.

• The WordPress page builder Elementor's new update focuses on faster page loads. They hope the changes will improve Core Web Vitals scores.

• TikTok has a new CEO. You might recall they hired an American for the role when former U.S. president Trump threatened to ban it. That guy lasted eight months before he quit. Another American executive stepped in as Interim CEO, but — now that the heat's apparently off — the final selection went to the CFO in their Chinese headquarters. That person will still be CFO as well.

• YouTube is testing popping video comments up on the playback timeline, sort of like how Soundcloud ties comments to specific moments in the file.