Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket
Robert Soni VP – RAN Technology, AT&T
The best way to assess integration across the industry is to go big – which is why AT&T and Verizon came together to assemble a broad consortium that includes not only other major network operators like Jio and Docomo but also a wide range of vendors. Beyond traditional suppliers like Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung, this consortium will include alternative vendors like Fujitsu, Mavenir, Dell Technologies, Intel, Radisys, Rakuten, Red Hat, VMWare by Broadcom, and Wind River Systems – all potential additions to an open and interoperable radio access network.
https://about.att.com/blogs/2024/open-ran.html
8x8 Viber for Business API
Choon Khee Koh September 6, 2024
In an era where effective communication can make or break a business, Rakuten Viber Business Messaging stands out as a powerful platform to connect with customers worldwide.
New Rakuten Viber Business Messaging Rates
Starting from October 1st, 2024, Rakuten Viber will be charging different rates for international and domestic business messages.
International rate type: There will be one international rate per country, irrespective of the type of message. Starting October 1st, 2024, new international enterprises* onboarded will be charged the new international rate if messages are sent to a country different from where the business is headquartered.
Domestic rates will remain the same: defined per country and per specific message type (transactional, promotional, conversational sessions).
Existing businesses will not be impacted by this change; their messaging traffic will continue to be considered domestic.
https://cpaas.8x8.com/en/blog/...ng-rates-8x8-viber-for-business-api/
Eric Van Vliet, Director of Telecom Market Development EMEA, Dell Technologies, talks about the close collaboration between Dell and Rakuten Symphony, highlighted by the private analytics solution aimed to address the evolving needs of customers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-ZEuHLXIAE
3 days ago
Japan is experiencing an unprecedented tourism boom: 35 million people are projected to visit in 2024, and the government has set an ambitious target of 60 million by 2030.
What’s fueling this boom? And what role does Rakuten Travel have to play? Jeremy Bek, Rakuten Travel’s General Manager and Global Head of Travel, gives some expert insights.
Pent-up demand and the weak yen
“I think it boils down to a couple of reasons,” Bek explains. “The first is this sort of pent-up demand that Japan as a destination has held for potential tourists. The reason for that is it was one of the last countries to open after the pandemic. So, when the floodgates opened in October 2022, we saw lots of booking spikes.”
“2024 is here, and we’re already seeing inbound tourism surpass pre-pandemic numbers.”
Jeremy Bek, Rakuten Travel’s General Manager and Global Head of Travel
This is working in tandem with another crucial factor: Japan’s historically weak yen.
“The weak yen makes it very attractive and accessible for many tourists who perhaps before saw Japan as a relatively expensive tourist destination. It’s now conversely become one of the most affordable tourist destinations – yet with a high quality of products and services, as well as being very rich in culture and experiences.”
From local leader to global player
“Rakuten Travel is one of the largest online travel agencies in Japan, and most of its business is the Japanese domestic business – so Japanese travelers traveling within Japan. Over 90% of our business is based on that.”
Originally from Singapore, Jeremy Bek joined Rakuten Travel in 2018, and is leading the platform’s global push.
“Overseas, Rakuten Travel is not at all well-known,” Bek says. “However, we do have the offering of travel from around the world into Japan. My job is to market, or rather bring to the market our service and product offerings.”
“I’ve helped many companies in my past life to gain a foothold or to expand their business throughout Asia,” Bek shares. “All of my experience helped prime me for this role, and I think it’s a huge opportunity to take a local giant global.”
To achieve this ambitious goal, Bek and his team launched a comprehensive initiative to rebuild Rakuten Travel’s global platform from the ground up. The result is a sleek, user-friendly website that supports 9 languages and 15 different currencies, catering to visitors from across the globe.
Bek reveals that one of the key challenges in this transformation was adapting the website design for international tastes. “If you take a look at our Japan website and our global website, they look vastly different.”
Selling Japan quality
In a crowded global market of online travel agencies, Rakuten Travel is carving out its niche by focusing on what Japan does best: quality and service.
“Honestly we’re a little bit late in the game of globalization, so we can’t fight head-to-head – we have to outsmart the competition,” Bek admits. “So what we’ve decided that we’ll focus on, being a Japanese company, is that Japan is very well known for high quality products and high quality service. That’s our unique selling point.”
This emphasis on quality over quantity is deeply rooted in the Japanese principle of omotenashi, or heartfelt hospitality.
“We ensure that we curate the best, authentic experiences and services such that the customer, who has put aside so much money and time to enjoy their holiday, would be promised the most authentic, enjoyable, and smooth experience.”
This commitment to quality isn’t just a marketing slogan; it’s built into the platform itself. Rakuten Travel has implemented a ‘Japan quality’ badge system.
“On the platform, you’re able to filter hotels that have the Japan quality badge,” Bek explains. “That badge is only given to a percentage of hotels who meet the criteria that we accredit, so that customers can be sure that the hotels they choose are of a high standard.”
Diverse experiences and hidden gems
Rakuten Travel also stands out for its offerings that extend beyond regular hotel stays. The platform showcases a wide array of authentic Japanese experiences, from traditional ryokans and hot springs to unique culinary adventures.
“That’s something that’s not available on any other global online travel agent,” Bek explains. “The details that we have in there, with rich content and images… I think that’s one very unique access that we give to global travelers who never had the opportunity before.”
Meanwhile, as concerns about overtourism in popular destinations like Kyoto grow, Rakuten Travel is actively promoting lesser-known locales.
“We are providing a lot of access and information and content to secondary cities that are now also becoming popular,” Bek explains. “This helps the demand to disperse to other hidden gems as we could say, in other parts of Japan, which are just as beautiful, or arguably more beautiful in various aspects.”
Leveraging tech to enhance the experience
Rakuten Travel is harnessing cutting-edge technology to address the challenges posed by the tourism boom and enhance the overall travel experience. This includes the use of AI tools to help hotels increase efficiency and productivity, from faster plan creation to automated query translation.
In addition, the company has invested heavily in building robust global customer service systems.
“We have customer service in local languages in most of our key markets, with local call numbers so that it’s convenient and accessible for people overseas,” Bek explains. This multilingual support works in tandem with a Japanese service desk: “This service desk is able to ensure smooth communication in Japanese with the hotel.”
Next step: Anywhere to anywhere
“2024 is here, and we’re already seeing inbound tourism surpass pre-pandemic numbers,” Bek remarks. “Regardless of whether it’s pent-up demand from the pandemic or not, it’s always been a continuous upward trajectory.”
As Rakuten Travel continues to ride the wave of Japan’s tourism boom, Jeremy Bek and his team are already looking ahead to even greater ambitions.
“At this moment, Rakuten Travel is only offered to inbound and domestic tourists. In the near future, we will also expand the destinations to the rest of the world – so not only to Japan, but anywhere to anywhere.”
This vision of Rakuten Travel as a truly global online travel agency, facilitating journeys between any two points on the globe, represents the next frontier for the company. “That would truly make us a formidable, global online travel agency.”
https://rakuten.today/blog/...-rakuten-travel-is-riding-the-wave.html
The Supreme Court has once again ruled in favour of Maxi Mobility, a subsidiary of Cabify. This ruling reproduces a similar one published a week ago, which ruled in the same way on another 1,000 licences, so these court rulings open the door for Cabify to add another 2,000 VTC licences in the Madrid region.
https://gigpedia.org/resources/news/2024/...he%2520Madrid%2520region.
Operating much like Uber, Cabify is one of the most commonly used alternatives to Uber in Spain.
Cabify is available in Alicante, A Coruña, Barcelona, Benidorm, Madrid, Málaga, Marbella, Murcia, Santander, Seville, Valencia, and Zaragoza.
Founded in 2011, this Spanish-born ride-hailing app has since spread to Latin America. It operates much like Uber, with a similar interface and pick-up system that displays the upfront cost prior to booking.
In addition to the Cabify Classic, you can hail luxury and tailored rides including Cabify ASAP, Cabify Plus, Cabify Group, and Cabify Kids.
Safety is paramount, with all drivers being geo-tracked and identifiable by the company headquarters. As well as being the most popular, Cabify is the greenest alternative to Uber in Spain. They offset the CO₂ of every single trip while motorcycles and scooters are 100% electric.
https://thespaintravelguru.com/uber-in-spain
- Die Margin-Handelsgebühren für US-Aktien betragen 0 USD, und die Margin-Zinssätze und Aktienleihgebühren werden erheblich reduziert! Doppelte Anzahl an vergebenen Punkten
18. September
https://www.rakuten-sec.co.jp/web/company/newsrelease/fy2024.html
https://digital-hessen.de/...iliate-netzwerk-rakuten-weiterentwickelt
This hand-picked selection of the most intriguing affiliate marketing statistics includes essential information on earnings potential, high-earner strategies, industry insights, and overall sentiment toward affiliate marketing.
The global affiliate marketing industry is worth over $17 billion.
The global affiliate marketing industry is expected to grow to a market size of $27.78B by 2027.
Affiliate marketing is responsible for 16% of all internet orders in the U.S.
81% of brands use affiliate programs to boost brand awareness and drive sales.
31% of web publishers say affiliate marketing is a top revenue source.
Major brands get 5% to 25% of their overall online sales from affiliate marketing.
20% of brand marketers say affiliate marketing is their most successful channel.
The 3 most profitable affiliate niches are Education/E-Learning, Travel, and Beauty/Skincare.
Affiliate marketing is growing at a rate of 10% year-over-year.
The average affiliate marketer earns $8,038 per month.
78.3% of affiliate marketers use SEO as a primary traffic source.
83.1% of affiliate marketers are optimistic about the future of affiliate marketing.
https://www.authorityhacker.com/affiliate-marketing-statistics/
Rakuten Symphony is a standout player in telecom because of its unique ability to understand and solve customer problems, the President of its OSS Business Unit (OSS BU) has said.
In the second edition of ‘Inside Track’, the new employee-facing live series hosted by comms director James Dartnell, Rahul Atri outlined the importance of understanding customer needs, why Rakuten has a strong track record of cultivating leaders and why “AI-washing” will not deliver value to mobile network operators.
Atri returned to Rakuten Group as Rakuten Symphony OSS BU President in 2023 having previously played a central role in deploying Rakuten Mobile's network - one based on an autonomous, cloud-native, end-to-end network architecture. He now leads a division of over 1,000 employees – Rakuten Symphony’s largest BU, the majority of which comprises engineers.
The Inside Track session kicked off with Atri emphasising the telecom industry’s fascination with the Rakuten telecom story. Rakuten Symphony’s experience in operating Rakuten Mobile’s network gives the organisation an ability to put “ourselves in the customer's shoes and help solve their problems with technology,” he said.
“They want to learn from us in terms of how we created things and how we solve problems. What customers love about us is we are not just there to sell more boxes and software. We own their problem and solve that end-to-end. We've been successful at doing that.
“I've been in multiple conversations with customers where they're not initially able to articulate some of their challenges, but we’re able to tell them a story that shows we’ve gone through the same journey and how we overcame that challenge. We have a product platform which is run across the lifecycle of Rakuten Mobile. I think that's our differentiator - that’s extremely helpful to customers.”
Atri highlighted how Rakuten Symphony’s unique approach to solving these problems has supported one of the world’s largest brownfield operators in retiring 15 legacy applications, with more to come. “That’s big – they’ve got so many technologies as part of their operation,” he said. If you want to work with brownfield operators and solve their problems, you need to have a culture in which you continuously innovate.”
‘Be a kid’
The second episode of Inside Track hosted two audience participation polls, the second of which revealed an eye-opening result - 70% of audience members agreed that the most important factor in building innovative and effective products and solutions is through a culture that enables employees to be creative - and to fail – a sentiment with which Atri strongly agreed.
“I want alchemists in my team - people who can connect the dots from what the customer is looking for to what the product should be. I think it's also very important in today's world to be a storyteller if you want to climb up the ladder faster. My advice is to be a ‘kid’ - be curious about everything. Don’t be scared of being judged. The more you experience you gain - especially in telecom – the more you build walls and a safety net around you. Learning never stops.”
Team work makes the dream work
Atri went on to highlight the importance of successfully unifying experts across UX, product management and quality assurance teams to deliver products and experiences that deliver value. “Whoever is working on products, whether it is the designer who creates the beautiful layouts and UX, the quality assurance team who really stress test the product, and developers who write the code – they all need to understand what the essence of the product is for the customer, how they're going to use it. In the OSS BU we know whatever code each employee is writing and where that is being used, how it looks, what customer uses it, and where it can be improved.”
No ‘AI-washing’
Understanding user intent is fundamental to Rakuten’s approach to developing AI services that can make a tangible difference to mobile network operators, Atri said. “We focus a lot on the ROI of our products - we don't want to just wash them with AI, to say we have a chatbot enabled. What customers really need is more insight and value. Today, anyone can talk to an AI platform. What we are working on is how to convert this into a mechanism where the tool can take care of the rest. We want to become a platform which can make a network programmable - where you can convey your intent to the platform, and the platform listens to you and takes care of the rest, whether it is scaling out a new application, deploying an edge site, reconfiguring itself or deploying networks to support slicing. The platform needs to understand whoever is behind the screen – whether it is a NOC engineer, a salesperson or the CEO - and what they are specifically asking.”
Leadership
The conversation concluded with Atri sharing his take on Rakuten’s strong track record of developing leaders internally – a culture that he himself has directly experienced. “Rakuten is the place where curiosity gets its wings,” he said. “Rakuten Symphony has been the disruptor. We've been the challenger. I think that comes from the leadership and the DNA we carry. We are a big company, but we have the heart and soul of a startup.”
Atri is now striving to continue this positive example by increasing the number of female leaders within the OSS BU. He gave a nod to Subha Srinivasan, Rakuten Symphony’s Global Head of Customer Excellence, as an example to other employees. “I’m trying to increase the number of female mentors in our organization, and Subha is a great example of that. What we have seen is that female leaders are often faster, more agile, more complete.”
https://symphony.rakuten.com/blog/...ident-rahul-atri-on-inside-track
In the second edition of Inside Track, the new employee-facing live series hosted by comms director James Dartnell, Rakuten Symphony's OSS Business Unit President Rahul Atri outlined the importance of solving customer problems, Rakuten's strong track record of cultivating leaders and why “AI-washing” will not deliver value to mobile network operators.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF9L3VS39mw
September 18, 2024
https://global.rakuten.com/corp/innovation/rnn/2024/2407_009/
September 19, 2024
Rakuten Mobile has announced the "SAIKYO SENIOR Program," a new program for users over the age of 65 which offers payment plans from effectively 780 yen monthly*, or effectively 1,000 yen monthly* if they include optional services such as 15-minute unlimited calling, mobile security and filtering services, and in-store support. The program aims to give these "SAIKYO digital seniors" confidence when it comes to using a smartphone to enjoy life with optimism and vibrancy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoDwFtS4SYo
Rakuten Medical, Inc.
Sep 19, 2024, 22:00 ET
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/...ation-2024-302253184.html
September 18, 2024
By Eden Ezion
In every corner of the world, communities are the heart and soul of our lives. They bring us closer, creating bonds that last a lifetime. Together, we learn, grow, help each other and celebrate. We are here to make those connections even more meaningful. And guess what? Communities on Rakuten Viber are now offering a much better user experience to bring together people from different walks of life.
https://www.viber.com/en/blog/2024-09-18/...perience-just-got-better/
September 9, 2024
We are thrilled to announce that Viber Pay, our innovative in-app digital payments feature, is coming soon to the Philippines! As a global leader in private and secure messaging, Rakuten Viber is excited to be the first messaging app in the Philippines to offer a fintech solution that allows you to send money to friends, loved ones, and businesses as easily and securely as sending a Viber message.
https://www.viber.com/en/blog/2024-09-09/...tlist-in-the-philippines/
1 Nutzer wurde vom Verfasser von der Diskussion ausgeschlossen: Scansoft