Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket
TALLINN, Estonia, March 18, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Rakuten Viber & Synctuition are proud to announce a partnership, aimed to combat mental health struggles
The toll of the global pandemic is being felt by everyone, especially when it comes to mental health. This is why Viber's partnership with Synctuition could not come at a better time. With Synctuition's groundbreaking technology, Viber can support its loyal users' mental health through the features offered in the messaging platform.
At a time where travel is difficult at best, Synctuition has created incredible, dream-like soundscapes by recording 3D sounds in over 2000 of the world's most serene locations. In combination with ASMR sounds and hours of original music, Synctuition has gained immense popularity as the only mindfulness app in the world with such a rich 3D audio relaxation experience. The result is a profoundly relaxing experience that feels like a combination of mind travel and a spa experience.
Now, Viber users will have access to meditation-themed stickers, leading to the discovery of an exclusive chatbot that will greet the users upon downloading.
https://www.finanznachrichten.de/...t-mental-health-worldwide-008.htm
“With Virtual RAN (vRAN), network functions are virtualized, breaking down silos and minimizing CAPEX and OPEX.” — Anil Bhandari, Vice President of Product Management, Altiostar
For Communications Service Providers (CSPs), there’s a lot of momentum around virtual and open radio access networks (vRAN/Open RAN), but it’s important to first understand the concept. Traditional RAN architectures are proprietary and closed solutions, and this hinders the innovation necessary to rapidly offer new mobile services or scale them as user demands change over time and location.
With open and virtualized RAN, proprietary and expensive hardware are replaced, and you disaggregate the RAN architecture, now providing open interfaces and an ecosystem in which many vendors and solution providers can innovate.
Virtual radio access networks (vRAN) apply the principles of network function virtualization (NFV), whereby the RAN network functions are now virtualized and deployed on cloud platforms. It brings the benefits of cloud and the ability to take a platform-centric approach by deploying RAN network functions on an agile, scalable and hybrid platform. This breaks down silos and minimizes CAPEX and OPEX.
Another important benefit of a vRAN is that network functions can be flexibly deployed as needed, more dynamically. This is key — especially in the context of 5G — to support higher cell and device density and a wide variety of use cases not limited to physical network functions.
In this video featuring Altiostar and IBM, you’ll gain additional insights and find answers to these questions
Why is vRAN important to 5G and network transformation?
How do you address integration, performance and scalability?
What role do AI and automation play in relation to vRAN?
https://www.ibm.com/cloud/blog/...-cloud-network-automation-altiostar
U.S. Efforts To Counter Huawei 5G Dominance Making Progress: Open RAN Playing Growing Role
In the last six months the level of commitment by major operating and equipment manufacturing companies around the world for virtualized or Open RAN networks, and of government support for these new, disaggregated networks, has picked up. All of the largest U.S. and many of the dominant European operating companies—AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Telefónica, Orange and leading German and Italian operators—have been active in developing Open RAN systems and deploying pilot programs in their areas of operation. The U.S. Congress authorized a $750 million program to support Open RAN solutions late last year. In Europe, Germany has announced a $2 billion program to support this technology, and other European operators are eligible to participate in the German-led alliance. The United Kingdom has its own $350 million project to develop Open RAN systems and equipment.
Of greater importance, telecom operators around the world are deploying Open RAN networks to prove the viability of the new systems with mounting success. The largest greenfield system in place is Rakuten in Japan, which has over 3 million users and has graduated from 4G to 5G services. Rakuten is offering pricing models significantly lower than the traditional hardware-based networks in Japan. The lower pricing supports goals set by new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to cut the relatively high costs of mobile services in Japan. American companies Altiostar, a systems integrator, Cisco, Red Hat and Qualcomm are major players in the Rakuten project along with Japanese electronics giant NEC. In the last year the four major telecom operators in Japan have joined the global O-RAN ALLIANCE which develops standards and promotes adoption of the new technology.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasduesterberg/...le/?sh=5807d5b6655e
03/08/2021
Rakuten aims to improve the precision of its digital advertising distribution and ad effectiveness verification through the new Rakuten advertising solutions planned and developed in collaboration with Dentsu and Dentsu Digital. These solutions will combine Dentsu's expertise as a comprehensive advertising agency and data algorithms for optimized advertising with Dentsu Digital's digital marketing insights, and make use of consumer behavior analysis data accumulated by Rakuten. Plans call for a beta version to be developed first, then after conducting trial version sales to corporations requesting advertisement through the Dentsu Group, the companies will use the feedback gained from these trials to improve the solutions, with the aim of offering full-scale services in 2021.
Rakuten and Dentsu have a history of supporting corporate marketing activities together, establishing the joint venture Rakuten Data Marketing in July 2017. Through these new solutions, the companies will build on their collaborative experiences and further utilize the data accumulated by Rakuten to support corporations in understanding their customers, and create marketing activities that are more in line with customer interests.
https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/...ent-of-New-Ad-32628991/
by Claire James
25/03/2021
Affiliate marketing has become mainstream in just about every branch of business, offering a new way to promote your brand, generate income, and connect with your customers. And boy, is business booming right now.
An incredible 84% of business owners are turning to affiliate marketing in search of new opportunities to drive revenue to their sites and opening up various engagement channels with their audience. In fact, the spending for affiliate marketing is expected to reach 8.2 billion dollars by 2022, and that’s only considering data from the US.
Final Word
Despite the apparent drawbacks listed above, affiliate marketing is still a fantastic tool for driving new customers to your business and boosting sales. A good affiliate will help increase your revenue, but they will increase your brand recognition in your industry, which will build authority and trustworthiness. Just make sure you conduct thorough due diligence when selecting who you work with.
https://www.abcmoney.co.uk/2021/03/25/...te-marketing-to-boost-sales/
JJ TysonSeptember 16, 2020
UpSellit designs, develops and optimizes personalized conversion experiences that increase online profitability for the web's largest brands.
https://blog.upsellit.com/...es-integration-with-rakuten-advertising/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMTWlj87yvI
Rakuten Mobile on 5G transformation: ‘Writing code to address automation is a critical thing’
By Sean Kinney, Editor in Chief on FEBRUARY 26, 2021
In conversation with Rakuten Group CTO Tareq Amin
Q: In describing your vision for network automation, you’ve used the analogy of Level 4 autonomous driving for vehicles. Could you give an overview of to what degree your network operations are currently benefiting from automation and describe how you get from where you are today to this future Level 4 degree of network autonomy?
A: When we looked at building Rakuten Mobile network with a fully-virtualized architecture, we also thought that we had a remarkable opportunity to transform the foundation of what we call our data pipeline. In that context, legacy systems such as operations subsystems, orchestration and many others, we had a great opportunity to fundamentally transform the thinking of how the construct of all of these comes together to provide true telemetry, real-time performance management, move away from counter-based way of monitoring and managing network to real-time customer experience. The journey started with a complete fundamental transformation of the OSS layer. We went from monolithic boxes—from fault [and]performance management, configuration, accounting, security, workflow—into one modular architecture, and what a remarkable thing that we have seen when we have done this.
I’ve always talked in the industry about this dream towards Level 4 autonomy in networks and today…I feel this is more pragmatic reality, more of a tactical approach. I am not underestimating the complexity that we need to go through to really achieve that vision. But wouldn’t it be exciting if the industry we’re in today talks about the concepts of autonomous networks the same way that you hear in autonomous cars. I think now that the excitement that we see is that the reality is in reach. I’ve always talked about this. I really believe we are within a 24-month window to be able to achieve a considerable level of advancements in the concepts of autonomous networks.
If you look at Rakuten Mobile today, I would say we’re about 55-60% into the journey but the good news for me personally is that the foundation has already been built. That was the tough part. The tough part was just getting through these early stages of how you extract telemetry from the virtual network functions, or from our containers, or from our elements whether it is radio, core or other elements, in real time; how you ingest them into large big data platform; how you develop the AI and machine learning that sits on top of this architecture to be able to make decisive decisions on whether it is network isolation, healing, elasticity and many others. I think all in all I believe the hard work is behind us, which is about the foundation, building and now most of our focus is just about continu[ing]to really emphasize the development and the advancements of the use cases on top of this foundation.
https://www.rcrwireless.com/20210226/5g/...mation-is-a-critical-thing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJwMPR7oek8
https://praxistipps.chip.de/rakuten-tv-kosten-im-ueberblick_106527
Rakuten Cellular hits 1.77 Gbps on mmWave community in Japan
March 26, 2021
Rakuten Cellular achieved 1.77 Gbps throughput in a current take a look at on its millimeter wave community in Japan.
Altiostar touted efficiency and automation capabilities of the virtualized cloud-native 5G community, which launched in September utilizing the seller’s Open vRAN software program. Rakuten has an fairness stake in Altiostar.
“This can be a important milestone for the Rakuten Cellular and Altiostar partnership in the direction of industrial realization of a excessive performing, cloud-native 5G RAN structure,” mentioned Ashraf Dahod, CEO of Altiostar, in a press release. “The Altiostar container-based answer permits Rakuten Cellular to rapidly provision new websites and switch up service for a buyer in file time.”
The announcement was mild on particulars concerning the take a look at, which passed off in December, however famous the obtain pace was a gigabit increased than common obtain speeds in Japan primarily based on Q3 pace assessments from Ookla. These outcomes confirmed the quickest 10% of customers in Japan noticed common obtain speeds of 719.42 Mbps.
That’s an enormous leap from 4G LTE as Opensignal in September confirmed Rakuten Cellular’s person speeds have been a lot slower than the typical of Japan’s three different wi-fi carriers – at simply 21.6 Mbps in comparison with 46.9 Mbps. A November report from Tutela confirmed customers have been getting a greater expertise when related to Rakuten’s personal 4G community, however speeds dragged as customers roamed on different service’s networks greater than 45% of the time due to restricted protection.
Extra just lately in February, Opensignal reported massive will increase within the share of connections to Rakuten’s personal community because the operator continued to construct out – and nonetheless reported higher on-net speeds versus when customers roam. The report famous that radio deployments have been targeted in places the place Rakuten might deploy the complete 20-megahertz of 4G LTE spectrum, however the service can leverage solely 5-megahertz in lots of places.
“Rakuten has been a disruptor within the cellular area and our 4G and 5G Open vRAN deployments mirror this technique,” mentioned Tareq Amin, EVP and Chief Know-how Officer at Rakuten Cellular, in a press release. “The efficiency and stability of the 5G community reveals {that a} cloud-native framework and web-scale structure can compete with a standard RAN method and supply new ranges of automation to the community.”
https://homeofficetoolsdaily.com/...-gbps-on-mmwave-network-in-japan/
Market Cap 10.524B
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/UPST?p=UPST&.tsrc=fin-srch
Khabarhub
March 26, 2021
In an innovative approach to reach out to its audiences, Khabarhub, together with Rakuten Viber, has launched Nepal’s first interactive Newsbot to get instant breaking news, interviews, exclusives, and updates, no matter where they are.
The Khabarhub Newsbot will help subscribers get instant news/stories, including political, business, sports, health, technology, lifestyle, social, and interviews/opinions in both Nepali and English.
Subscribers can choose between English News, Nepali News, Horoscope, Forex, Bullion, and also interact and share content directly through their mobile phones.
Viber is known to provide its users exciting new features and unlimited access in their quest for the latest information and experiences. This partnership with Khabarhub is yet another step in the right direction in the mobile-first-world we live in.
Khabarhub is one of Nepal’s most trusted digital news agencies with a strong digital presence and a reach of over 1.8 million across various platforms.
https://english.khabarhub.com/2021/26/173076/
Martin Lau, executive director and president of Tencent, said Rakuten has developed “a vibrant ecosystem” via membership and rewards, and will soon extend its “unrivaled strength” in eCommerce to FinTech and digital content. “Tencent shares Rakuten’s aspiration of creating value through innovation and empowerment for users and partners. … We look forward to pursuing strategic cooperation across activities including digital entertainment and eCommerce, creating value for users and building the internet ecosystem together,” Lau said.
https://www.pymnts.com/news/investment-tracker/...tencent-japan-post/
• Revenue in the eBooks segment is projected to reach US$15,635m in 2021.
• Revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2021-2025) of 3.18%, resulting in a projected market volume of US$17,723m by 2025.
• User penetration will be 13.6% in 2021 and is expected to hit 14.9% by 2025.
• The average revenue per user (ARPU) is expected to amount to US$15.34.
• In global comparison, most revenue will be generated in the United States (US$6,071m in 2021).
https://www.statista.com/outlook/dmo/.../epublishing/ebooks/worldwide
March 12, 2021
In our current travel-limited world, staying connected to our loved ones is more important than ever. For Katya, a Market Trainer for Cellular Sales in the Kansas City area, the Viber app has kept her in close contact with her parents in Russia.
“With the pandemic happening, plus being so far away from my parents, Viber has been a lifesaver,” Katya said. “I’m able to talk to my parents in Russia every single day.”
What’s Viber?
With Viber, users from anywhere in the world can send texts, make voice and video calls, and start group chats and more, all for free. You can also transfer calls and chats from one device to another, like your smartphone, tablet, or computer.
“I came to the U.S. when I was only 16 to attend college and play professional tennis,” said Katya. “Between being so far away, being in different time zones, and being a typical broke college student, it was hard to stay in touch with my parents in the beginning. Now that we use Viber, we’re able to talk every day and my parents can see their granddaughter (who just turned one!) whenever they want.”
Security comes first
In addition to being easy to use, Viber takes your security seriously. All messages are encrypted so no one – not even Viber – can read your messages except you and the recipient. You can also add a “self-destruct” timer to your messages, so they disappear after a certain amount of time.
“We’ve tried other apps over the years, but Viber is by far my family’s favorite,” Katya said. “It helps having a reliable smartphone or tablet, too. That’s a huge part of why I love my job – I love helping our customers find the perfect device so they can stay connected to their families, as well.”
https://www.cellularsales.com/blog/using-the-viber-app-with-family/
By Lior Hadar MARCH 24, 2021
People had to adjust to this new world we were in. Where social distancing and lockdowns became the “new normal” and find new ways of staying in touch with loved ones and working from home.
The shift to the virtual space was quick – and soon everyone was “meeting-up” via video. Viber felt this as well, with a 170% increase in all group-related activities, including chats, calls, and Communities.
Looking back at the past year, Viber CEO, Djamel Agaoua reflected on how Viber had to adjust as well. “We work tirelessly to make communication better, especially during these challenging times, while always keeping your privacy a top priority. We thank you for choosing Viber as your messaging app and are grateful for your continued trust in us.”
Viber stepped up with a solution. Official Communities created by governments and health organizations as a way of reaching millions of people no matter where they live. These Communities allowed official and verified information to reach millions of people quickly and effectively.
Communities were opened all over the world, including in the Philippines, Greece, and Sri Lanka – where they saw huge waves of people joining. Today, they stand at 2.2M, 740K, and 450K members respectively.
The World Health Organization, with whom Viber has a long-standing relationship, also opened a chatbot on Viber. It helped people stay safe and informed, which quickly gained over 2.3M subscribers.
As people flocked to Viber, we quickly doubled the number of participants in group video calls from 5 to 10. Soon, 10 became 20, allowing even extended families and large groups of friends to see each other in one call.
To start a video call in any group chat, tap the video icon and select up to 19 participants.
Luckily, Viber has many tools and options that make working remotely simple and easy. One being Viber for Desktop. It allows for all your messaging and calling needs to be on the same device as all your other tasks. This way you don’t need to switch from your phone to your computer throughout the day.
All the while never you never have to compromise on your privacy because Viber for Desktop is not web-based. Unlike solutions offered by other apps, Viber for Desktop has end-to-end encryption by default on all private and group chats and on private calls.
Easy and clear communication when working remotely is difficult. This is why many teams and companies opened group chats on Viber. Group chats have up to 250 participants, and to start a call, just select up to 19 people from the group.
Large companies can open Communities, where there is no limit on the number of members and newcomers can see the chat history when they join.
In groups and Communities, everyone can react to messages, create polls and quizzes, and send GIFs and stickers.
Quick to their feet, millions of teachers and instructors around the world, started running classes via video calls and turning Viber group chats into their main form of communication with their students.
Teaching via a group video call on Viber is easy. There is no time-limit and video calls are completely free. This means your yoga class can be as relaxing as it needs to be, without a session expiry message waiting to interfere.
Having adjusted to the “new normal”, teachers and instructors have new routines centered around virtual classrooms and group chats, to great successes – showing the importance of innovation and resourcefulness.
We want to thank the hundreds of millions of people around the world who put their trust in Viber, to keep them connected to their loved ones during these challenging times.
https://www.viber.com/en/blog/2021-03-24/...-people-stayed-connected/
•§February 8, 2021
Russia-based Alfa-Bank announced today that it has started serving its clients in popular messengers such as Whatsapp, Telegram, Viber and Facebook Messenger. The company stated that users can click a link, access the Alfa-Message channel on a messenger, and receive a virtual card.
Alfa-Message can be used to transfer money using a card or phone number, to receive money by QR code, to pay for purchases from offline and online stores, to apply for a loan, to register as a self-employed person, or to start a company. All that can be done quickly and without downloading mobile applications. Alfa-Message is currently available to clients with Russian phone numbers.
“We expect more efficient client capture by launching this technology. In the short run, we are going to integrate the messengers in a wide range of our business processes; in particular, convenient messengers will be used for cross-selling, closing deals and to inform clients of their pre-approved offers,” said Alfa-Bank Digital Business Director, Executive Board member Ivan Pyatkov.
Alfa-Bank is a universal privately-owned bank in Russia. It serves more than 850 thousand corporate clients and 18.7 million retail customers. The bank is developing “A New Generation Branch Network” with recognition based on biometrics and geolocation without refusing live communication with customers.
https://ibsintelligence.com/ibsi-news/...am-viber-facebook-messenger/
Ukrzaliznytsia launched bots in Viber and Telegram: how to buy tickets
Diana Polunina
The state-owned company Ukrzaliznytsia has launched a pilot project of a chatbot in Viber (ukr_railway) and Telegram (@Ukrzaliznytsia_Tickets_Bot) messengers. In the first release, it is possible to purchase tickets for the Intercity + trains.
As the company’s Acting Board Member, the Head of the branch Passenger Company, Alexander Pertsovsky, said at a briefing, the chatbot has a notification function that says on what platform a particular train arrives. As quoted by the agency Interfax-Ukraine, there were many requests to develop this function.
What can the Ukrzaliznytsia bot do?
The Ukrzaliznytsia bot is available in three languages —Ukrainian, English, and Russian. And in addition to reference information, it provides an opportunity for feedback. In the first release, the bot can find tickets for high-speed trains Intercity +: their cost, availability. There you can also buy and return tickets.
https://en.thepage.ua/news/...n-viber-and-telegram-how-to-buy-tickets
March, 11, 2021
Boosting its fan-first experience for users, Viber launches an official global FC Barcelona Community in Russian, on top of its English, Arabic and Spanish versions, and announces a Q&A with 5 of the club’s players in March
Rakuten Viber, one of the world’s leading apps for free and easy communication, unveils a series of new initiatives going into the 2020/2021 season for its longtime partnership with, FC Barcelona. In addition to launching an official global FC Barcelona Community in Russian, the company plans to publish a special Q&A in the communities with five players in February: Marc-André ter Stegen, Frenkie de Jong, Miralem Pjanić, Sergiño Dest, Clément Lenglet, and Antoine Griezmann.
Viber’s FC Barcelona cooperation kicked off in the 2017/2018 season, and Viber has served as the club’s official channel of communication since. As the football season heats up and we march toward the new decade, Rakuten Viber kicks off a new chapter of its partnership with the club, building a fan-first experience for its users all the way through various touch points on its messaging app.
http://bizenglish.adaderana.lk/...tives-for-fc-barcelona-partnership/
By Dan Taylor, March 10th, 2021.
One of the biggest players in the ride hailing and multi-mobility space, Cabify is now jumping into the get-it-to-your-door game.
Following on the success of their Cabify Envios programme launched in April of last year, the move is slated to “foster efficient, multimodal object transport.”
Currently wrapping the pilot phase with collaborators including Chilean furniture and mattress manufacturer Rosen, beginning this April, Cabify will offer this last mile service to retailers across every industry within the Spanish, Argentinian, Colombian, Chilean, and Peruvian markets.
Cabify notes that the service has been particularly successful in Argentina, Chile and Peru, and nearly one million delivery rides have already been completed across the entirety of Latin America.
According to Cabify’s projections, this should enable a 5x turnover by the end of the year. Ambitious, yes. Undoable, let’s see.
https://tech.eu/brief/...the-last-mile-jumps-into-the-logistics-game/
Founded in 2011, CABIFY SRL is a holding company that connects private and business users with the forms of transport through any s smartphone mobile apps.
Headquarters: calle Pradillo 42,, Madrid, Madrid, 28002, Spain
Employees: 1,000
Revenue: $398 Million
https://www.zoominfo.com/c/cabify/372845925
LAST UPDATED MARCH 18, 2021
Brazilian fintech EBANX, LABS‘s parent company, and Spanish ride-sharing firm Cabify partnered up to offer a new delivery feature on the mobility app. The new service will allow drivers to deliver objects and orders at the request of users or small businesses.
Consumers who buy physical products on EBANX Beep, a new online sales platform, will be able to arrange with the seller details for delivery, which will be carried out by Cabify. EBANX Beep was launched in March and allows the sale of vouchers for products and services that can be retrieved later on. The main goal of this feature is to help small vendors and autonomous sellers to keep some revenue during quarantines imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The new delivery service will be available in the next few weeks, in a pilot format for small merchants in eight cities in Brazil: São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Brasília, Campinas and Santos.
“With Cabify as a logistical partner, we have further expanded the reach of small entrepreneurs – on the internet, with the EBANX Beep platform, and in the physical world, with Cabify drivers. Even those merchants who do not have a delivery structure will be able to sell and deliver their products, maintaining cash flow during this delicate moment”, says André Boaventura, CMO and partner at EBANX.
Cabify has also been working to set up partnerships with delivery apps, supermarkets, pharmacies, restaurants and other shop-keepers. “We are glad to help small retailers and Cabify drivers. The partnership with EBANX makes perfect sense for the moment we are experiencing. We have to add more and more companies so as to provide the greatest convenience and safety for everyone”, comments Luis Saicali, general director of Cabify Brasil.
https://labsnews.com/en/news/business/...ffer-a-new-delivery-service/
Its biggest investor is Japanese ecommerce giant Rakuten, which is also an investor is US taxi app Lyft and fellow Spanish unicorn Glovo
.
https://sifted.eu/rankings/spain-startups-top-rankings