COULD AD TAX REFORM BE LURKING?:  While the threat of a Net Neutrality rollback is getting most of the digital media headlines in DC these days, there’s a second and potentially more insidious threat on the horizon.  The issue is Ad Tax Reform, which would change the way companies can write off the cost of advertising.  Right now any money spent on advertising is treated like a business expense (like buying a truck or  office rent), and can be written off against the current year’s earnings.  But some members of Congress are privately discussing a plan to force businesses to amortize the deduction over a 5-10 year span, which would significantly water down advertising’s tax benefit, and most likely lead to a reduction in marketing budgets.  Ad Tax Reform’s proponents’ rationale for this plan is a little obscure, but InsideRadio does a decent job of explaining their motives in the attached Link.  The ANA is estimating this could cost marketers over $200B in increased tax payments if it goes into effect, so it’s a pretty big deal.  Not sure if this will come to fruition of not, but the topic of Ad Tax Reform is worth being versed in.

AMAZON TAKING DISTRIBUTION A STEP TOO FAR?:  Believe it or not there are some products you can’t buy on Amazon.  These are typically higher end or niche products whose manufacturers like to tightly control their distribution.  Last week Amazon launched a new program to create a back channel distribution system in which they’ll buy these items from 3^rd party retailers (who are approved to sell the items from the manufacturer), and then resell them on Amazon.  By doing this Amazon gets to “sell” products it’s been prohibited from carrying by the original manufacturer.  To say some brand are pissed about this move is an understatement.  To quote Birkenstock CEO Dave Kahan in the attached CNBC link, “Amazon’s pathetic attempt to create a back channel means to sell products not offered on the site is an assault on decency”.  Not exactly the words you want to hear from a manufacturer whose goods you’re trying to sell.  My guess is with enough brand pushback this program could be short lived, as any incremental 3^rd party sales might not be worth the overall headache.

SALES LESSONS FROM A CADDIE:  Finally today, I know Jordan’s Spieth’s British Open win happened a week ago, but I came across this New Sales Coach post in LinkedIn over the weekend, and I thought it was worth sharing.  It’s not about Jordan Spieth though, it’s about his caddie Michael Greller who arguably made the biggest impact in Spieth’s eventual British Open win. The author dissects two moments in the final round which both seemed negative for the golfer.  But Greller’s contrasting approaches to each situation – one using tough love and the other building confidence – are perfectly relatable to sales management.  I especially love how the article dissects the learnings from each situation for both Sales Managers and Salespeople.  It’s a business lesson we can all use, from of all people a caddie on a golf course.

Have a great Monday guys!

THE DUOPOLOY’S Q2 EARNINGS:  Over the past few days both Google and Facebook have reported Q2 earnings.  Both saw astounding revenue growth (again), but there are some important differences emerging between each companies’ financial performances.  Let’s start with Google’s earnings results.  On the surface top line revenue looked strong at +21% YoY growth, with $26B earned in just one quarter (let that sink in for a minute).  But there’s also trouble brewing for Google, which Wall Street pounced on.  Besides the small matter of a $2.74B antitrust fine from the EU, which Google paid in Q2, their biggest problem was a -23% drop in the average cost per click Google charges.  As the ROAS value of a click goes down businesses are bidding less for them.  Right now the CPC decrease is being offset by more total searches, but you have to wonder if Google’s Search cash cow can keep being milked.  On the other hand check out Facebook’s Q2 earnings.  While FB’s top line rev is a distant second at $9B in Q2, the gap between the two companies is shrinking.  Beyond just growing rev +43% YoY, FB’s other metrics look healthy.  Mobile now comprises 87% of FB’s total ad rev, and monthly active uniques grew by +17% to 1.32B users – that’s about a quarter of the world’s population!  In all fairness, Google’s bad day would be a dream for any other company, but you have to wonder if the playing field between these two giants is starting to level.

IF OLV HAS A SICKNESS, THEN VE IS THE CURE:  Yesterday I featured an article about the OLV environment getting murkier as more brands blindly throw money into the network side of the sector.  As a contrast check out was is working for digital video in the following eMarketer article and graph below.  Value Exchange-based video is white hot right now, with 90%+ completion rates for :15s and :30s.  The reason completion rates are so high is obvious – reward listeners with content they want and they’ll be willing to watch and even engage with a video.  One of the leading examples of this is Pandora’s Sponsored Listening product.  For listeners the bargain of watching a full video from a sponsoring brand in order to unlock an hour of commercial free listening is a no-brainer.  It’s just one more piece of evidence that proves the adage that what’s good for the consumer is good for the brand. eMarketer Article

SIRIUS ON PANDORA:  Finally today, over the past month there’s been much speculation about SiriusXM’s motives around the minority ownership stake it purchased in Pandora.  During yesterday’s Q2 earnings call SiriusXM CEO Jim Meyer gave some very honest responses to those questions.  InsideRadio (who you know I “love”) actually gave a fair summary of Mr. Meyer’s comments in the attached link.  It feels like SiriusXM views the Pandora relationship as a true partnership with several opportunity paths to go down.  It also seems like there are many TBDs as the two dance partners get to know one other.  Only time will tell where this thing goes.  In the meantime, the article provides a fascinating look into the mind of SiriusXM.

Have a great Friday (and weekend) guys!

ALL OLV IS NOT CREATED EQUAL:  Well you knew this was going to happen.  As brands rush headlong into OLV we’re starting to symptoms of an overplay.  The first and most obvious sign was the brand safety backlash in Q2.  It’s like all of a sudden brands woke up and realized they had no idea where their OLV impressions were running or what content they were being associated with.  Now we’re also starting to see a bifurcation of the marketplace, with video inventory settling into two camps – network and premium.  On the network side think of pre-roll inventory run on a collection of sites which can’t easily prove Viewability or Audience Verification metrics.  OVL buyers are learning the hard way that these impressions aren’t even worth their discounted CPMs.  On the other end of the spectrum think of site-served video inventory next to native content, which is sometimes even endemic to the publishers’ own content.  This inventory is usually served in a “lit room” environment, so brands know who they’re buying.  Not surprisingly Viewability, Verification and Engagement scores are strongest here.  The point to the attached Digiday article is that buyers must pay special attention to which bucket of OLV they’re buying.  It seems like pretty simple advice, but my guess is many clients and agencies think they’re buying the filet mignon of video and instead end up with the ground chuck.

THE WFH DILEMMA:  Even if you don’t work for a company which allows the option to work from home you probably know someone who does.  On paper this seems like an ideal arrangement.  Employees have the ultimate flexibility of working in their pajamas and employees can even save money on office rent.  Sure, some less motivated employees could take advantage of working less from home, but many employers who think of their workers as mature adults (and not kindergarteners), have been willing to take that chance.  So in the last 20 years this practice has become much more prevalent.  But things are starting to change.  As it turns out, the biggest downside to WFH isn’t homebound employees taking secret naps, but the overall drain on coworker collaboration.  The attached Bloomberg link does a nice job of explaining what’s going on.  As companies start to organize themselves by functionality, working groups become more important than individuals.  And unless group members are sitting near one another in almost-constant communication the collaboration will suffer.  My guess is this factor will lead to the pendulum swinging the other way from WFH to being at your office desk.

THE ALPHABET OF ROCK FOLLOW UP:  Over the past 24 hours I’ve received a ton of guesses from DG Nation about the bands behind these letters.  A few of you even asked for the answer key so they could share it with clients and coworkers.  Your wish is my command – see the answer key below.  I’m scratching my head a little on Nazareth and UFO – was U2’s logo not available?!?  Remember, this is for Rock so not all genres are represented.  So who got the most right?!?

Have a great Thursday to all you rockers out there!

A LONG VIEW ON MUSIC:  Over the past year there’s been a palpable sigh of relief among music industry execs thanks to streaming and the royalties the streamers pay.  The recording industry’s revenue has started to climb again after a 15-year nose dive.  While this seems like a net positive development for our industry, Bloomberg takes a longer and more negative view of what’s really occurring in the attached article.  Their main argument is that streaming saved the music industry not because labels and publishing orgs led the way in digital music delivery, but in spite of them.  Labels (especially) were the most vehement to block downloaders and then streamers from digitally delivering music as they tried to save their legacy CD business.  And even now these same middlemen squeeze royalty deals so hard that no streamer has ever turned a sustained profit.  As Bloomberg points out, what the labels don’t seem to understand is that there’s no going back to non-digital delivery.  And if the streamers fail it will eventually mean a turn back downward for the labels and the artists/songwriters they represent.  I also find it interesting that nowhere in this article is terrestrial radio mentioned.  Apparently Bloomberg shares the belief at that AM/FM radio isn’t the future of music either.

YOUR VACUUM CLEANER JUST GOT A LOT CREEPIER:    Yesterday news started to spread of an unintended consequence from Roomba’s iRobot integration into IoT products like Amazon Echo.  Apparently Roomba has the ability to pass back data on the floor plans of iRobot users’ homes to Amazon, Google, etc..  Through a process called simultaneous localisation Roomba collects and stores the layouts of rooms it’s iRobots are cleaning using the devices’ infrared sensors.  Roomba is on the record saying it isn’t selling this data back to any third party data aggregators, but it could.  Since nobody on planet earth has ever forced it’s vacuum cleaner company to sign an NDA, it’s safe to say this information could get loose in the marketplace.  So maybe KellyAnne Conway’s assertion that your blender could be spying on you was right after all?!?

POP QUIZ – THE ALPHABET OF ROCK:  Finally today, here’s a fun little music-related mind bender.  Musician’s album art and band’s logos used to be almost as popular as the music itself.  The following A-Z image pays homage to this.  So here’s the challenge – how many bands can you identify from their letter fonts without using Google?  I was able to name ten (A, D, E, K, M, P, R, V, W, and Z), which I’m pretty proud of.  Let me know how many you guessed.

Have a great Wednesday guys!

Q2’17 US MEDIA SPENDING – BY THE NUMBERS:  On Monday SMI released its quarterly report card on US Media spending.  As noted in the attached MediaPost link, overall ad spending was up 3.8% in Q2 compared to 2016, but that growth comes with an important asterisk.  The entire ad business is being carried by Digital which was +11% YoY.  That growth offset the decline of legacy media platforms such as TV (-1%), Newspaper (-20%, ouch!), Radio (-4%), Magazine (-12%) and OOH (1%).  So basically Digital won at the expense of everyone else.  But not all digital platforms did equally well.  For the first time non-premium OLV was down -15%.  This could be an aftershock of YouTube’s brand safety boycott in Q2.  On the other hand spending in Social platforms surged 55% YoY, as more brands push for native social integrations.  All in these numbers are a mixed bag of winner and losers, but with a decidedly digital slant.

IT’S NOT IF, BUT WHEN YOU’LL GET CHIPPED:  Well you knew this was eventually going to happen.  According to USA Today a Wisconsin tech company called Three Square Market is the first to offer employees the option of being microchipped.  The chip itself is about the size of a grain of rice and gets inserted in the skin between your thumb and forefinger (apparently it’s unnoticeable).  Benefits of having the chip including not needing your employee badge to open doors or use printers, and could eventually be used for skip-the-cashier checkout at the company snack shop.  The cynic in me says companies could also use the chip to monitor employee movement, break/bathroom time, etc., but I’m sure Three Square Market isn’t leading with that headline.  My prediction is employee chipping will become fairly common within the next decade.   Many pet owners, yours truly included, chip their dogs.  So why not humans?  Then we could completely embody the term “working class dog” (wa-wa-waaah).  I say bring on the chips!

SEEING THE IDENTITY FOREST THROUGH THE DATA TREES:  Finally today, I love the attached thought leadership article which was published yesterday in AdWeek.  In the article Neustar CMO Steven Wolf Pereira challenges the notion that the collection and use of data for audience targeting is inherently evil.  It’s not!  But instead of just filling their data lakes with bulk information about consumers, data aggregators must focus on creating consumer identities to deliver contextually relevant marketing.  Some of Mr. Pereira’s suggestions . . . focus on the recency of data (so you’re not serving travel ads to someone who booked a trip online two weeks ago), and go past simple cookies to devices IDs (which can track the same consumer across every device they use).  These aren’t easy problems to solve, but they’re worth the challenge.  Because brands who can make the transition from spray-and-pray impression delivery to a simple data segment, and instead harness consumers’ identities to deliver meaningful 1-1 engagement will be the clear winners of tomorrow’s data game.

Have a great Tuesday guys!

FAKE STREAMS ARE THE NEW FAKE ARTISTS:  If you thought Spotify’s fake artist controversy and music licensing lawsuits were enough, get ready.  Now comes word of a thornier issue . . . pay-for-play streaming.  Apparently several websites exist whose sole purpose is to charge performers and producers for getting their music streamed on Spotify.  The biggest of these is a Houston-based company called Streamify – open this link and then go take a shower.  Not only can you buy streams (aka plays) on Spotify, you even get a tutorial on how to game the system.  According to the attached Music Business Worldwide link Streamify’s software will request the same song over and over on Spotify based on how many streams you buy.  So why would someone buy these streams?  You’d do this to simulate a new artist or song breaking with a deluge of listener requests, in the hope that your newly-manufactured popularity will make it up the trending charts and become a legitimate hit.  For once Spotify isn’t complicit in this practice.  In fact they try to defend against third party chart manipulation by watching out for sudden spikes in requests.  But as the author of this article demonstrates by getting his garage band recording played 15,000 times, these scams aren’t being caught.  The result is one more example of how what you hear on Spotify isn’t always what it seems.

MAKING IT RAIN IN THE CLOUD:  Cloud computing isn’t just a thing, it will be the thing when it comes server-side processing and data storage for years to come.  However, outside of storing your phone’s pictures “in the cloud” or sharing a g-doc with coworkers, the typical consumer has no idea of the competitive battle being waged amongst the tech titans for domination of the Cloud.  That’s why the attached Business Insider link is a must read.  It explains how Cloud services grew from the internal need to run companies’ computer networks, and became an entirely new universe of IaaS/PaaS business products.  The clear leader in this space is Amazon, but only because they got into the Cloud first.  The likes of Google, Microsoft, IBM have launched their own Cloud offerings and are starting to catch up.  After reading this you’ll get an understanding why information processed and stored in the Cloud is just as important as digital content and the devices we use to ingest that content.  Fascinating stuff!

SUNSCREEN CLOGGING UP YOUR DEAL IDS?:  Finally today, I saw this cartoon over the weekend in AdExchanger (yes, I sometimes read AdExchanger over the weekend), and wanted to simultaneously laugh and cry.  If you work in media you know Summer Fridays are real.  Agencies give half days, alcohol is ordered at client lunches, and vacations are taken en masse from Memorial Day to Labor Day.  It’s been that way forever.  But what if the recent phenomenon of programmatic buying is giving clients and agencies a false sense of security that marketing is still happening on these Summer Fridays?  If you have a “set it and forget it” mindset about programmatic arrangements you might think your DIDs are humming along while you make an early Friday escape, only to find you’ve spent 25% of your Q3 marketing budget when you get back to work after Labor Day.  The cartoonist’s point – could programmatic be creating the unintended consequence of even slower summer months than ever before?  Let’s hope not, for all of our sake.

Have a great Monday guys!

ERASING THE LINE BETWEEN RETAIL AND ECOMMERCE:  Yesterday Amazon and Sears announced a joint business partnership in which Amazon would begin selling Sears’ Kenmore appliances online.  For Amazon this is just the latest product line extension, this time into the home improvement sector.  The move jolted just about every other stock in HI, as noted in the attached Money-CNN link.  On the other side of the deal Sears gets a lifeline by finding a distribution dance partner for one of its few remaining proprietary brands.  On a macro level this deal demonstrates nothing is off limits when it comes to online commerce.  It makes you wonder if other industries like Auto, Insurance, etc. could be ripe for eCommerce disruption in the coming years.  If you’re smirking at that idea, watch the video at the beginning of the article about the time Sears sold cars through its catalog. #fullcircle

HEADER BIDDING GIVING RISE TO ADTECH 2.0:  So this is interesting.  Due to the rise in popularity of Header Bidding (which enables publishers to offer their inventory directly to DSPs without being gate kept by Google), the DSPs are being overwhelmed by a flood of new inventory available for purchase.  As noted in the attached Business Insider link, this deluge of impressions is pushing existing AdTech’s to the tipping point where it becomes impossible to sort/analyze/buy across the millions of impressions for sale in real time.  As a solution we’re starting to see a new breed of AdTech 2.0 firms (like nToggle in the article), whose sole purpose is to be an algorithm which allows DSPs to decide which impressions to buy.  Confused yet?  While it’s a complex topic, this one’s important to understand as digital media sales becomes more automated by the day.

THE HONEST TRUTH ABOUT RADIO AND MADISON AVENUE:  These days the typical radio hype article goes something like this . . . “Our industry reaches 93% of the population . . . blah blah blah . . . even Gen Z still relies on AM/FM radio to discover new music . . . blah blah blah . . . and radio delivers a 16x ROAS, so everyone should buy us”.  This sounds like brainwashed nonsense from an industry struggling to stay relevant.  That’s why the attached RadioInk Op-Ed article is so refreshing.  It comes from Eric Rhoads who’s the longtime owner/editor of the publication.  Mr. Rhoads is known for blunt talk, even if the message is something his audience doesn’t want to hear.  And in this article he pulls no punches.  Traditional Madison Avenue marketers think of terrestrial radio as an afterthought, if at all.  As evidence, consider that Mobile advertising just knocked Radio out of the top five platforms for US ad spending.  In fact, things looks so bleak that his best advice is for Radio to stop fighting the digital/mobile “dragon” and figure out ways to compliment these mediums.  I think he’s being very realistic and is spot on with this assessment.  It’s a sobering weekend read if you have the time.

Have a great Friday (and weekend) guys!

THE SPOTIFY SWAMP JUST GOT A LITTLE MURKIER:    As if the accusation of manufacturing music from fake artists to save on royalty costs wasn’t enough, Spotify is now entangled in a pair of new lawsuits which allege the streamer is playing unlicensed music, and therefore owes royalties and penalties of $150,00 per infraction, which could add up to as much as $365M.  All of this comes after Spotify paid a $43M settlement in a class action lawsuit for doing this exact thing with other song writers.  Apparently that settlement didn’t cover the songs which are the basis of the latest law suit.  While it’s unlikely Spotify will have to pay hundreds of millions for this one, it does threaten their ability to go public later this year since potential investors tend to shy away from unresolved lawsuits.  It also speaks to the broader issue of sloppy music curation by Spotify, who seems to be cutting corners to play as much music as they can for the least possible royalties cost.

A DIGITAL DOUBLE WHAMMY FOR DEALERS:  It’s no secret that the US Auto Industry has slowed in 2017 as unit sales recede from the all-time high level of 2016.  With fewer buyers in the market it makes sense that there would be less traffic into dealers’ showrooms and to their websites.  The attached MediaPost link paints a bleak picture, with a 20% decrease in web traffic over the normally busy Fourth of July holiday week.  But what makes this even worse is the phenomenon of Search demand-pricing which effects what dealers pay for search-based leads.  With fewer potential buyers browsing online dealers have to bid up those who are searching, and end up paying a significantly higher CPC for those precious few leads.  The result is a Malachi Crunch where dealers’ marketing costs go up while sales go down.  Makes you feel for these guys!

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT:  Finally today, I’d like to leave you with a simple slide which will really get you thinking about how technology has transformed our society.  As a Gen-Xer I can remember a time when there was no internet.  I’m not just talking no mobile apps, we had no online access at all.  (My children still don’t understand how we survived.)  Of course today technology is ubiquitous, and resulting innovations like ride-sharing have changed the way we do everyday tasks.  The following is an anonymous picture taken of a slide at a media conference.  The image speaks for itself.  I reposted this on LinkedIn a few weeks ago and got over 50,000 views, so I thought it was blog-worthy.  Enjoy!

Have a great day guys!

THE SOLUTION TO iHEART’S DEBT PROBLEM . . . MORE DEBT!:  As covered in previous blog posts, iHeart has made numerous attempts to gain agreement from its creditors to refinance over $20B in debt as a way to stave off bankruptcy.  To date very few debt holders have shown interest in the deal.  But in a late breaking development one of iHeart’s institutional lenders has floated a proposal to issue another $500K in debt to iHeart (think of this as a cash lifeline to keep the patient alive), in return for an equity stake in the company of 49% ownership in all business units if iHeart were to break up during bankruptcy liquidation.  This is a pretty savvy hedge play for iHeart’s creditors, because the biggest fear is a huge loss on their loan principle if iHeart goes bankrupt.  By offering some extra working capital as the carrot, they can lock down equity in case of a breakup.  No word from iHeart on whether or not they’ll take this agreement, but I’m guessing they don’t have many other good options.

THE TIME SPENT = ENGAGEMENT FORMULA WORKS FOR VIDEO TOO:  For years digital audio publishers like Pandora have been pressing the advantage of time spent on their platforms.  The logic path is simple . . . the more time users spend with a publisher the better chance brands have to create relationships with those users by storytelling in an uncluttered/unrushed environment.  As it turns out, that same rule about time spent equaling engagement also applies to video, as highlighted in the following AdWeek link.  The research and accompanying infographic come from a video tech firm called TwentyThree.  Their “State of Online Video 2017” study shows that shorter isn’t always better when it comes to video.  Longer form videos in the 2-5 minute range, especially user-rendered video on publishers’ websites, perform very well on engagement metrics.  Keep in mind we’re not talking about video ads which are several minutes long – this has to be relevant video content the user wants to view.  Publishers who deliver this kind of content will have devoted and engaged audiences, who then become the perfect subject to serve the occasional OLV ad to.  (You knew I had to throw that in somewhere, right?!?)

THE GOOGLE GLASS ZOMBIE COMES BACK FROM THE DEAD:  Remember the hype around Google Glass 3-4 years ago?  These wearables were going to change the way we used technology by utilizing retina control of a full computer right in the frame of your glasses.  But there were two problems.  The devices didn’t work very well, which is something Google eventually could have debugged.  And they also seemed really creepy – as in you’re somehow undressing me with a see-through-clothes app.  The combination of these two issues doomed Google Glass to the interesting ideas which never took off file . . . until now.  It turns out Google has been quietly working on a commercial application in a platform called Glass Enterprise Edition.  The early reviews of Glass EE in manufacturing are strong, as noted in the attached Wired.com link. Worker productivity is up, and assembly lines no longer have to include computer work stations.  Industry experts predict mainstream adoption of Glass EE, with up to 15M sets being used in the workplace by 2025.  And the best part, nobody has to pretend the tech-fashion picture on the left is actually cool, because there’s a legitimate work use in the picture on the right.

Have a great Wednesday guys!

NAMING NAMES:  I know I’ve been pounding on the Spotify “fake artist” story recently, but this thing is like an onion with new layers being pulled back all the time.  First, Spotify’s response to the question of overplaying fake artists’ music was “ . . . categorically untrue, full stop.”  Then Music Business Worldwide cataloged 50-100 “artists” who were played (millions of times in some cases), despite not having any identity outside of Spotify.  Now we have names and faces of the producers creating this music.  According to the music industry site RouteNote the primary source of the self-produced music is from Andreas Romdhane and Josef Svedlund (pictured below – red arrows), who work out of a studio in Spotify’s hometown of Stockholm.  What makes this even more interesting is that Romdhane/Svedlund are getting their songs published by Universal Music Publishing Group, which is the songwriter publishing arm of UMG.  So does this mean Universal is complicit in bringing non-artist songs to Spotify?  It would seem like a weird thing to do since Universal’s real life artists stand to lose royalties every time one of these songs are played instead of theirs.  My guess is if we give it a week we’ll discover the answer to this question and maybe even more.

 

VIDEO FRAUD GETS MORE SINISTER:  Earlier this year there was a huge outcry around the problem of ad fraud tied to impression consumption by bots (aka non-humans).  While this problem still persists, there’s a way more insidious version of fraud involving higher value video inventory that’s taking center stage right now.  The attached Digiday link explains what’s going on.  One of the most common examples occurs when bad actor arbitragers resize video creative to fit within a display unit (so they’re buying cheap display inventory and reselling it as more valuable video preroll).  Another emerging scam is the cloning of tracking tags like VAST/VPAID, and then serving static display ads which can then be billed as video, with viewability #s no less!  Again, most of the corruption is occurring in the network environment, where the fraudulent buyer can pull inventory anonymously and resell it to the unsuspecting clients/agencies.  It’s one more reason the industry is trending away from networks and towards publisher-specific PMPs.  #yikes!

GET READY TO NEVER HAVE TO DRIVE AGAIN:  Finally today, if you work in or call on anyone in the US Auto Industry you know autonomous (self-driving) cars are coming.  The technology is already being street tested in cars and even in self-driving beer trucks.  But just because we can produce technical innovations like autonomous vehicles, doesn’t mean we necessarily should.  The impetus for “should” must come from a legitimate need that’s mainstream enough to scale.  The attached TechCrunch article illustrates the need for autonomous vehicles by comparing real life examples of getting from cities A to B by plane, train, and now by self-driving automobile.  When you stack up the options it’s easy to see which will win out – autonomous cars, because they’ll dominate the Golden Triangle of being Faster/Cheaper/Better.  It’s also interesting to think that after the first 15 years of commercial aviation only 6,000 customers were flying, and now 70 years later over a billion flights are taken per year.  Makes you wonder if we’re already into the first 15 years of autonomous driving and just don’t realize it yet.

Have a great Tuesday guys!