MarTech Today: PullString for Amazon Alexa skills, Invoca embeds IBM Watson & Microsoft shopping assistants

Here’s our daily recap of what happened in marketing technology, as reported on MarTech Today, Marketing Land and other places across the web.

From MarTech Today:

• PullString opens up its conversational platform for Amazon Alexa skills
  Dec 8, 2016 by Barry Levine
  The availability of the PullString platform means brands are now getting more options for developing their interactive personalities through intelligent voice agents.
• Invoca embeds IBM’s Watson so call centers can better understand their customers
  Dec 8, 2016 by Barry Levine
  Companies say this is the first use of the supercomputing service for marketing-focused call intelligence.

From Marketing Land:

• Compare 9 leading predictive marketing analytics vendors in this Marketing Land report
  Dec 8, 2016 by Digital Marketing Depot
  Marketing Land’s “B2B Predictive Marketing Analytics Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide” examines the market for predictive marketing analytics platforms and the considerations involved in implementation. The 35-page report reviews the growing market for predictive analytics platforms, plus the latest trends, opportunities and challenges.
  
• Using shopping assistants to fill your shopping carts, online
  Dec 8, 2016 by Christi Olson
  Columnist and Microsoftie Christi Olson discusses the company’s personal shopping assistant and provides some thoughts on how marketers might adapt to this new technology.
• New wave of referrer spam wrecking Google Analytics data
  Dec 8, 2016 by Jonathan Hochman
  If you’re seeing a lot of referral traffic in your Google Analytics data, you’re not alone. Contributor Jonathan Hochman explains how referral spam happens, lays out methods to combat it and suggests potential solutions for Google’s consideration.

From Around The Web:

• Google’s self-driving car team is hiring executives as it prepares to spin out from Alphabet’s X, www.recode.net
• Europe Presses American Tech Companies to Tackle Hate Speech, New York Times
• How To Speed Up Your WordPress Website, www.wpexplorer.com
• Progressive Web AMPs, www.smashingmagazine.com
• Why is site structure important?, yoast.com
• Aeropost Tackles Cross-border Ecommerce Using Advanced Personalization, Segmentation and Customer Experience Technology from Qubit, www.businesswire.com
• Catalyx launches behaviour tracking tool, www.research-live.com
• Integral Ad Science Launches Open Source SDK to Drive Mobile Innovation for the Advertising Industry, integralads.com
• MomentFeed Announces New Online-to-Offline Customer Journey Tracking Tools for Multi-Location Brands, www.marketwired.com
• mParticle’s Next Generation Platform Liberates Customer Data from the Cloud, www.prnewswire.com
• Splash Announces SplashConnect on the Salesforce AppExchange, the World’s Leading Enterprise Apps, www.prnewswire.com
• Debunked: What Tech Do You Really Need to Run an Online Business?, www.blogtyrant.com
• How to choose the right ad tools for your site, adsense.googleblog.com
• What B2B Marketers Need to Know About AMP, www.komarketingassociates.com
• Google, HTC, Oculus, Samsung, Sony join forces to create Global VR Association, techcrunch.com

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech Today. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.