Richard Corriere Writing and Research

Posted on by Richard Corriere

Books

  1. Going Sane [1].   1975. Citation: Going Sane
  2. The Dream Makers[2]. Citation: Dream Makers
  3. Psychological Fitness[3]. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. CitationL Psychological Fitness
  4. Dream and Waking: The Functional Approach to Dreams.[4] Peace Press. 1980. Citation: Dreaming and Waking
  5. The Functional Analysis of Dreams: A New Theory of Dreaming[5]. Citation: The Functional Analysis of Dreams
  6. Life Zones [6].   1987.Citation: Life Zones

 

Published Articles, Presentations and Reports

1975

  1. The Transformation of Dreams. D. Thesis.  University of California, Irvine, 1975. Citation: The Transformation of Dreams

1976

  1. The Transformation of Dreams in Psychotherapy. Psychological and Physiological Studies of Feeling Therapy.  Western Psychological Association. 1976.[8]  PROFESSIONAL PRESENTATION

1977

  1. Toward a new theory of dreaming. Journal of Clinical Psychology. Journal Citation
  2. A Re-Application of the Process Scoring System for Dreams.[10]. Journal Citation
  3. Two preliminary studies on sleep and psychotherapy. Physiology and Behavior. 1977.[11] Journal Citation
  4. The Functional Theory of Dreaming. Paper Presented at California State Psychological Association. 1977[12]  PROFESSIONAL PRESENTATION
  5. The Functional Approach to Dreams in Psychotherapy. Paper Presented at California State Psychological Association. 1977[13] PROFESSIONAL PRESENTATION
  6. Toward a New Theory of Dreaming. Sleep Research, Vol. 6 BIS/BRI, UCLA. 1977. Journal Citation
  7. Longitudinal Changes in Sleep Patterns of Patients. Sleep Research, Vol. 6 BIS/BRI, UCLA. 1977 Journal Citation
  8. K-Complex changes in the sleep records of patients. Sleep Research, Vol. 6 BIS/BRI, UCLA. 1977.[16]

 

1978

  1. Two Preliminary Studies on Sleep and Psychotherapy.   1978. Journal Citation
  2. Psychophysiological correlates of the spontaneous K-Complex. 1978  Journal Citation
  3. Effects of Psychotherapy on REM Time and REM Latency. 1978. [19] 
  4. Applications of the Process Scoring System to Waking, Dream and Therapy Reports. Association for the Psychophysiological Study of Sleep. 1978.[20]  PROFESSIONAL PRESENTATION
  5. Re-Application of the Process Scoring System for Dreams. Association for the Psychophysiological Study of Sleep.  Journal Citation
  6. Applying the Functional Approach to Dreams. Masters Thesis.  Cammer, S.[22]

1979

  1. The Functional Analysis of Dreams: A New Theory of Dreaming. Journal of Clinical Psychology.Journal Citation

[1] Hart, Joseph; Corriere, Richard; and Binder, Jerry.  Going Sane.  Aaronson. 1975.

[2] Corriere, Richard and Hart, Joseph.  The Dream Makers.  Funk and Wagnalls.  1977.

[3] Corriere, Richard and Hart, Joseph.  Psychological Fitness.  Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.  1978.

[4] Corriere, Richard; Karle, Werner; Woldenberg, Lee and Hart, Joseph.  Peace Press.  1980.

[5] Corriere, Richard; Karle, Werner; Woldenberg, Lee and Hart, Joseph.  Peace Press.  1980.

[6] Corriere, Richard and McGrady.  Life Zones.  William Morrow and Company. 1986.

[7] Corriere, R.  The Transformation of Dreams.  Ph.D. Thesis.  University of California, Irvine, 1975.

[8] Corriere, R. The Transformation of Dreams in Psychotherapy.  Psychological and Physiological Studies of Feeling Therapy.  Western Psychological Association. 1976

[9] Corriere, R.; Hart, J.; Karle, W; Binder, J.; Gold, S.; & Woldenberg, L.  Toward a New Theory of Dreaming.  Journal of Clinical Psychology, 1977. 33)3), 807-19.

[10] Hartshorn, K.; Corriere, R.; Karle, W; Switzer, A.; Hart, J.; Gold, S.; & Binder, J.  A Re-Application of the Process Scoring System for Dreams.  Journal of Clinical Psychology, 1977. 33)3), 844-48.

[11] Karle, W.; Hopper, M.; Corriere, R.; Hart, J.; & Switzer, A.  Two preliminary studies on sleep and psychotherapy.  Physiology and Behavior. 1977. 19 (3), 419-23.

[12] Woldenberg, L. The Functional Theory of Dreaming.  Symposium presented at the meeting of the California State Psychological Association. 1977

[13] Corriere, R.. The Functional Approach to Dreams in Psychotherapy.  Symposium presented at the meeting of the California State Psychological Association. 1977.

[14] Corriere, R.; Hart, J.; Karle, W.; & Woldenberg, L.  Toward a New Theory of Dreaming.  In Chase, M.H., Walter, P.L. (Eds.).  Sleep Research, Vol. 6 BIS/BRI, UCLA. 1977. 121.

[15] Karle, W.; & Hopper, M..  Longitudinal Changes in Sleep Patterns of Patients.  In Chase, M.H., Walter, P.L. (Eds.).  Sleep Research, Vol. 6 BIS/BRI, UCLA. 1977. 149

[16] Karle, W. & Scott, R.  K-Complex changes in the sleep records of patients.  In Chase, M.H., Walter, P.L. (Eds.). Sleep Research, Vol. 6 BIS/BRI, UCLA. 1977. 151.

[17] Karle, W. & Hopper, M. Two Preliminary Studies on Sleep and Psychotherapy.  Psychophysiology.  15 (3), 1978, 273

[18] Scott, R.; Hopper, M, & Karle, W.  Psychophysiological correlates of the spontaneous K-Complex.  Psychophysiology.  15 (3), 273. 1978

[19] Karle, W.; Corriere, R.; Hart, J.; & Hopper, M. Effects of Psychotherapy on REM Time and REM Latency. Meeting for Psychopysiological Resarch.  Madion.  1978.

[20] Corriere, R.; Karle, W.; & Hart, J.  Applications of the Process Scoring System to Waking, Dream and Therapy Reports.  Association for the Psychophysiological Study of Sleep. 1978.

[21] Hartshorn, K., Corriere, R.; Karle, W.;& Hart, J. Re-Application of the Process Scoring System for Dreams. Association for the Psychophysiological Study of Sleep.  1978

[22] Cammer, S. Applying the Functional Approach to Dreams.  Fielding Institute, Santa Barabara. 1978.

[23] Karle, W; Corriere, R.; Hart, J.; Woldenberg, L The Functional Analysis of Dreams: A New Theory of Dreaming.  Journal of Clinical Psychology Monograph Publications. 1979.

The Fraud of Digital Advertising

Posted on by Richard Corriere

Click Rates

Advertisers spend the most money on digital advertising ($111 billion per year).  Digital advertising spend is the fastest growing advertising segment.  Google and Facebook control 90% of digital advertising.  60% of digital advertising is fraud.  George Simpson in his article, Is Ad Fraud Inevitable? writes,. “Agencies and brands simply write off fraud as the cost of doing business online. That is, until someone comes along and says, you know, you’re wasting 60 cents of every dollar, or calculating that every ad dollar lost to fraud costs.”

So today’s research fact reveals after the fraud comes the CLICK.  Overall consumers click .09%. (See the above chart)

We can now create a digital advertising algorithm to help us understand what is going on:

  • Pay to reach 1,000 shoppers online
  • 60% fraud = reach 400 shoppers
  • .09% click
  • REACH – .36 shoppers after spending to reach 1,000
  • Pay $45 per click.  Not sale.  Not customer. But click.

Local Media:  Local media has tried to compete by switching to digital advertising.  This has proven to be a catastrophic mistake.  Local media trying to compete digital advertising is like the local high school basketball player trying to play against LeBron James, the NBA superstar.

Local media

 

The Rigged Retail Playing Field

Posted on by Richard Corriere

Take a look at the chart of America’s monopolies and it is not difficult to understand the the issues facing local businesses – the playing field is rigged.

Emily Stewart writes, “From cellphone providers to beer to cat food, consumers have a lot fewer choices when it comes to buying — even if they don’t know it.” Emily Stewart and America’s monopolies

Stewart shows that the big companies have gotten bigger over the past fifteen years.

In the capitalist system that is what they are supposed to do.  However, local businesses have failed to see, no less understand, the threat the growing monopolies pose to their survival and success.There are 28 million local businesses in America.  The 2019 Department of Labor Statistics confirms what everyone instinctively already knows – local businesses are under threat.  The cause is clear – shoppers have shifted their buying to online and local businesses have not responded.  Amazon has 50% of e-commerce and grows stronger daily.  Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, ominously warned all local businesses, “Your margin is my opportunity.” Retail Business Failures

The bigger companies become the tighter control they place on wages, working conditions, and advancement.  Small local businesses NEED employees and focus on increased wages and advancement in order to grow their businesses.

The financial advantage goes to the bigger company.  The problem is then reflected in weak personal income growth because entrepreneurs are being pushed out of the game. The New Times review of the impact of monopolies

Stewart writes, “In more traditional sectors, such as hardware stores, tobacco, and railroads, concentration is on the rise. And in technology-related fields, including smartphones, social media, and cellphones, in just in the past five or so years, it’s even higher.”

Think of monopolies as movie studios that buy up scripts to keep them off the market.  The bigger a company becomes the more it needs to grow.  Growth comes from gobbling up competitors.

The #1 fact about monopolies is that as they take dominance in market share they use that power to drive up prices.The New York Times and how monopolies drive up prices.  Competitors drive down prices because their battle ground is efficiency and innovation.  Monopolies drive up prices because there is no battleground.  Steward writes, “The fewer options there are, the fewer places consumers have to shop for goods and services, and the less pressure for competitors to keep prices down.”

The big three monopolies are Amazon, Google and Facebook.

Let’s focus on Amazon which is earning an estimated $187 billion per year.   Jeff Bezos is brilliant and his team the best.  These top of the food chain capitalists have rigged the game. Amazon is smart and their focus is growing market share at the expense of every other business in the world.

Amazon’s retail strategy is to enter a business and use its technology and processes to make selling and delivery of products better, faster, and cheaper – AT FIRST.  Amazon uses lower prices to drive out competitors .  Once Amazon has market dominance it increases prices. This behavior is what monopolies do.

Consumers don’t care about monopolies and their impact on local businesses but they should.  Monopolies take money out of local communities.Money Stays in LocalThey have been convinced that convenience is important than choice.  A belief that will come back to haunt them as local communities become ghost towns where stacks of Amazon boxes on front porches.  Keep in mind that local communities need revenue to support schools, infrastructure, parks, trash pick, and all the other things that make local communities thrive and a place to live.

FACT: Amazon and the other monopolies take the financial lifeblood away from local communities.

How Amazon is destroying media companies

Posted on by Richard Corriere

Amazon is destroying media companies.  The destruction goes from the biggest television companies, movie companies to the local newspaper in tiny communities.

How and why are they doing it?

The Amazon Battle Plan for destroying media companies:

1. Cut off their revenue streams

2. Use its 105 million list of Prime Members to offer advertisers better response rates

3.  Give advertisers access to the 55% of all online shopping searches that begin on Amazon.com

4. Sell products like Alexa, smart homes, and security system at incredibly Low Prices in order to take control over the future of shopping – i.e. voice-based search and AI driven “suggestions” for home and entertainment

Amazon can afford to invest in destroying media companies because it is the most successful company in the world, run by Jeff Bezos, the richest person in the world.  We all know Amazon as the online e-commerce site that controls over 50% of everything that is bought and sold online.  It may seem a bit like a “tinfoil hat” conspiracy to think about Amazon as the big bad media company.

Why would Amazon want to destroy media companies? 

Amazon’s Hidden Strategy:  Amazon wants to destroy media companies because it has a hidden strategy a to become the largest global media/commenications company.

Guess what?  It already is.  Amazon is the world’s biggest communication’s company:  “Amazon has movies, TV stations, cable streaming, music, and direct communication with over 105 US households and will soon bypass ALL of cable television.  Not one cable channel but ALL of them together. Staggering concept.   But wait!  They also own the Washington Post and they just bought MSG Cable Network.”

Amazon isn’t some big bad company that is taking over media through deception or fraud – Amazon is taking media and communications because its executive leadership is smarter than the executives running most media companies.  The major exception would be Disney, whose leadership is outstanding.

What makes Amazon’s executives so smart is they are focused on reality and facts.  When Bezos runs a meeting everyone is handed a 3-6 page type analysis of the problem to be discussed.

Everything STOPS.  Everyone in the meeting spends the next 30 minutes reading.  The meeting is then run with everyone, literally and figuratively, on the same page.  Most media companies aren’t run that way.

Fox Business News reports that Amazon has become so powerful it is “Stealing Market Share From Facebook and Google and is a threat to all traditional media companies.”  Fox News continues, “It wasn’t that long ago that all the talk in the digital advertising market was centered on the duopoly of Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) and Google, a division of Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG).  In late 2017, Digital Content Next reported the pair would account for about 63% of online advertising in the U.S. last year, with Google nabbing 42% and Facebook garnering 21%. Even more telling, Brian Wieser of Pivotal Research Group estimated that the two companies accounted for 90% of the growth in the U.S. digital ads industry in 2017.”

So here is how those focused Amazon executives are destroying media companies – they RECOGNIZE and RESPOND in REAL-TIME to TRENDS & FACTS.

Before we detail out how Amazon is destroying media and communications companies it is important to look at its PRIMARY ADVANTAGE.  Amazon uses its e-commerce division to attract shoppers.

  • Amazon has over 105 million Prime Members105 million Prime Members, 55% of all product searches, and its growing grocery and fast food stores to offer shoppers AMAZING DEALS.  Amazon doesn’t care about losing money – they want to grow their LIST of shoppers.
  • Shoppers have changed.  Instead of looking at ads, 90% of shoppers begin the buying process by using their smart phones to search.  Guess what, 55% of all product searches begin on Amazon.
  • Data. Amazon has better data than Google, Facebook, and ALL other media and communications companies. Googgle and Facebook’s data is about views and clicks – Amazon’s data is about PURCHASE.  Advertisers want to know about who’s buying what.  Local and national media companies don’t have the data.
  • Voice-Based Search.  Amazon, with its 35 million Alexa voice assistants, already controls this communications channel.  Amazon is so far ahead of the voice trend in terms of advertising revenues that media companies don’t stand a chance.
  • Smart Home.  From speakers to thermostats Amazon is communicating with consumers.  Advertisers want targeted ads – Amazon is so targeted they know what music you listen to, how cool you keep your home, and when you are home.
  • Cloud computing.   Amazon is streaming EVERYTHING – music, movies, books, and podcasts. Ditto on Better Data.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF AMAZON DESTROYING MEDIA COMPANIES:

As more media companies go out of business because of Amazon – Amazon gains greater control of what news Americans receive.  With or without political bias, Amazon will homogenize the news.  American democracy is based on many different points of view.  If Amazon wins – there will be the Amazon point of view.

Internet Trends & Analysis

Posted on by Richard Corriere

Each year Mary Meeker reports on Internet Trends and often predicts what can be expected in the coming years.  This year is no exception.

1. U.S. adults spent 5.9 hours per day on digital media in 2017, up from 5.6 hours the year before. Some 3.3 of those hours were spent on mobile.

ANALYSIS: The more time people spend online the more power the tech giants gain. Recent articles (The Tech Giants Covert Actions) show the main focus of the tech giants is 24/7 surveillance, censorship, and manipulation. The tech giants engage in these three things to drive revenues. They want to know everything people in order to sell targeted advertising. They censor companies and ideas because they seek to promote products, businesses and ideas that support their global revenue agendas. They manipulate in order convince shoppers to spend more time and money on the products they promote and to view the advertisers who pay them to appear on their platforms.

2. Voice-controlled products like Amazon Echo are taking off. The Echo’s installed base in the U.S. grew from 20 million in the third quarter of 2017 to more than 30 million in the fourth quarter.

ANALYSIS: Voice-controlled products all share one common feature – they limited their response to queries to those companies that are paying the most to the tech giant offering them. Voice-controlled products are NOT benign. The tech giants goal is to make people more passive and therefore susceptible to their surveillance, censorship, and manipulation

3. Tech companies are becoming a larger part of U.S. business. In April, they accounted for 25 percent of U.S. market capitalization. They are also responsible for a growing share of corporate R&D and capital spending.

ANALYSIS: The tech giants are already monopolies. Like all monopolies they cannot help but want to grow.

4. E-commerce sales growth is continuing to accelerate. It grew 16 percent in the U.S. in 2017, up from 14 percent in 2016. Amazon is taking a bigger share of those sales at 28 percent last year. Conversely, physical retail sales are continuing to decline.

ANALYSIS: Just think of the growth of online sales as a loss of local business sales. Ditto for Amazon’s share.

5. Big tech is competing on more fronts. Google is expanding from an ads platform to a commerce platform via Google Home Ordering. Amazon is moving into advertising.

ANALYSIS: Refer to the innate philosophy of all monopolies. These five points are interwoven. The bigger tech giants become the more capital they have to expand into new services and products which leads to people spending more time online. The more they expand the greater their surveillance, censorship, and manipulation. The cherry on top is voice-controlled products whose sole function is to support the revenue goals of the tech giants selling them.

 

Facebook quickly becoming as dangerous to local business as Amazon

Posted on by Richard Corriere

Facebook is entering the home services market Facebook goes after local business. Starting today, U.S. Facebook users browsing the Facebook Marketplace will be able to search thousands of home service professionals through a new feature that helps users locate top-rated and vetted professionals like house cleaners, plumbers, contractors, and others, as well as receive quotes.

THE NET-NET. FACEBOOK GAINS DIRECT CONTROL OVER LOCAL SERVICE PROFESSIONALS. JUST LIKE AMAZON, WHO FACEBOOK USERS FIND WILL BE DIRECTLY LINKED TO HOW MUCH $$$$ EACH LOCAL SERVICE PROFESSIONAL SPENDS WITH FACEBOOK. Facebook after local businesses

When users click on one of the prompts, they’re walked through a form to fill out other relevant data in order to find matching home pros. The service pro who follows up will respond on Messenger.

THE NET-NET. FACEBOOK DIRECTLY CONTROLS THE CUSTOMER/SERVICE PROFESSIONAL INTERACTION. FOLLOW THE MONEY.

Amazon expanded into this category several years ago with Walmart quickly following.

THE NET-NET. LOCAL COMMUNITIES DON’T PROSPER. MAIN STREET BECOMES A GHOST TOWN. ALL THAT WILL REMAIN ARE THE TECH GIANTS AND THE GIANT RETAIL CHAINS.

Local Retail Nightmare – the Amazon monster under the bed is real. 

Posted on by Richard Corriere

Local Retail Nightmare – the Amazon monster under the bed is real. 

Summary:

  • Amazon is at war. It has begun its attack on national, regional and local retailers
  • Amazon’s just launched 60 over-the-counter health products
  • The first casualties will local businesses.
  • As local businesses fail local media becomes collateral damage
  • Finally, local communities become ghost towns

Children throughout history have woke up screaming with fears of monsters.  Monsters in the closet and those terrifying monsters just under the bed.

Local retailers and even the retail giants like CVS, Rite Aid and Walmart are waking up to the fact that the Amazon monster is real. Unlike a nightmare, this monster kills for real by devouring margins.

In what seems like nothing less than bystander apathy, local newspapers, local radio, and local TV stations aren’t up in arms.  What they don’t know is that retail’s nightmare is already infecting their monetary blood streams.  They will be the collateral damage as their local advertisers’ margins shrink and advertising dollars dry up.

What makes Amazon such a lethal monster is its mastery of logistics and multiple streams of revenue.  It’s 2017 earnings were a whopping $178 billion.  In 2016 it earned $15 billion from its web services which accounted for 89% of its operating income.   Amazon earned an additional $2.8 billion from its 2017 advertising services. Its advertising revenues are expected to pop to $4.5 billion in 2018.  The monster has many heads and all the heads are growing.

The Amazon War Strategy.  Amazon uses the revenues from its different revenue streams to wage war in retail.  For Amazon it all makes sense.  When it wins in retail then manufacturers are forced to advertise and use Amazon web services.  It is an ever-expanding monopolistic web.  Amazon Ad Revenues

Tough for a retail chain or a local business to compete against a giant that DOES NOT NEED to make profit from its retail business.

Amazon is a real threat to national, regional, and local businesses.  Health products are just the beginning.  Amazon launched its Whole Foods delivery service.  They will deliver groceries, pizza, prepared meals, and home cooked meals.  Shoppers will live in an Amazon world, use their Amazon credit cards and talk to Alexa to do it all.  FYI – that charming AI driven Alexa people have in their homes is tracking everything they do and when they ask Alexa a question her first algorithm imperative is – Amazon products first.  Alexa is not Lady Liberty.

The Amazon monster eats companies, jobs, and local communities.  The local businesses, which already operates on razor thin margins soon, won’t be there.

The Slaughter is taking place in slow motion. A first glance Walmart with its $418B worldwide 2017 revenues and 5,000 Walmart stores might lead one to assume it is well positioned for the war.  Dig a little deeper and we find Walmart’s growth rate was a miserly .63% while Amazon posted a whooping increase in 25.2% sales growth in 2016 and 44.6% in 2017.  Amazon with its 63 million Prime members offers a 5% discount for shopping in its 470 Whole Foods Stores.  Think about it.  Amazon’s Whole Food stores require ZERO advertising expenditure while Walmart spends nearly $3B per year on advertising each year.

This isn’t a battle it is a slaughter in slow motion.

Alien Infection. Amazon uses a parasite strategy…inflect host companies like Acme, CVS, Rite Aid and eat their margins a small percentage at time.

 Angelica La Vito CNBC 2/20/18 article detailed what Amazon is preparing to do the retail giants.  Angelica LaVito // 20 Feb 2018 // CNBC. Amazon wages war on retailers

  • Amazon sells branded over-the-counter medications such as Advil, Mucinex and Nicorette as well as options from Perrigo’s generic GoodSense brand.
  • Basic Care, Amazon’s recently launched exclusive line of Perrigo OTC health products, is a direct challenge to pharmacy retail chains.
  • CVS Health, Walgreens Boots Alliance and Rite Aid are losing in-store traffic as people shop for OTC products online. Where they shop is Amazon.

In LaVito’s article the most telling revelation is that people are increasingly shopping for OTC products online.  Fortune Magazine reported, “For the first time ever, shoppers are going to the web for most of their purchases. An annual survey by analytics firm comScore (scor, -0.92%) and UPS (ups, +1.11%) found that consumers are now buying more things online than in stores.

The survey, now in its fifth year, polled more than 5,000 consumers who make at least two online purchases in a three-month period. According to results, shoppers now make 51% of their purchases online, compared to 48% in 2015 and 47% in 2014.” The shift to online shopping

Amazon is where 55%+ of online shoppers begin. LaVito goes on, “Pharmacies make money when people walk in looking to grab medicine and end up buying cosmetics and other goods. They’re already losing traffic as people shop for those products online, including on Amazon. Giving them another possible reason to skip the store could hurt even more.

Matthew Oster, head of consumer health research at global market research firm Euromonitor, knows what’s coming, “It’s a very different world, and having Amazon jump in is not a good sign for existing brands, either branded or private label, because the way Amazon works is its ability to take on unprofitable ventures for a time to see how things go.  And the fact they have a near monopoly in e-commerce gives them a lot of scale that can allow them to undercut price. So that aspect should be concerning for whoever their competitors are in that space.”

CVS, Rite Aid, Acme, Kroger, Safeway, Publix, and other large national and regional chains will fight back.  But like France against the German blitzkrieg, don’t expect the outcome to be positive.  The most immediate casualties will be local pharmacies, grocery stores, butcher shops, and other local businesses don’t stand a chance.  As these local business fall, local media collapses.

2018 – Big Brothers Are Watching

Posted on by Richard Corriere

Facts:
• In 2017 Facebook and Google account for 84% of new digital advertising and 96% of its growth.Threats to free thoughts
• Amazon captured 50% of black Friday sales and 44% of all online sales in 2017. They reached 38% in 2016.
• Google controls 90% of all online searches
• All local businesses are under life threatening pressure from Amazon, online giants and mega retailers

Max Hasting’s recent article writes, “1984. Almost 70 years ago, George Orwell imagined a future in which ‘Big Brother’ scrutinizes an enslaved society with an all-seeing eye.” Big Brother saw and controlled everything. Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft have taken 1984’s nightmares into 2018’s second to second surveillance. We now carry our surveillance systems with us 24/7/265.

Follow the Money. Facebook’s #1 driver is money. Facebook is valued at around $175 billion, making it the fourth most valuable company on the planet. What makes him and his fellow-social media giants uniquely dangerous, however, is not their money, but their unprecedented, intimate personal knowledge of billions of people. No human can be entrusted with such data.

Dangerous. There is ZERO outcry when these giants work with China, Iran and other dictatorial countries to install repressive filters to block any information that the government deems undesirable. Don’t even think for a second they are not doing in U.S. according their own unpublished standards.

 

Amazon, Google, Facebook and the retail giants are destroying media and local businesses.  The game is rigged against local.  If these giants succeed local communities become ghost towns.

Google, Facebook, Amazon and the other tech giants dancing on the edge of legality

Posted on by Richard Corriere

Google could face a $9bn EU fine for rigging search results in its favour

 

Google faces $9Billion EU fine

The EU, of which I am not a fan, gets this one right.  Google rigs its search results.

The European Commission’s decision will come after a seven-year investigation into the world’s most popular internet search engine was triggered by scores of complaints from both US and European rivals.  The EU competition authority accused Google in April 2015 of distorting internet search results to favour its shopping service, harming both rivals and consumers.

What most small businesses never discover is that Goggle rigs search results 24/7/365.  There is ZERO ability of a small or medium businesses to discover the Google bait and switch.  The bait is that Google, ad agencies, advertising media and local media all market to local businesses to invest in Google search.  What they NEVER reveal is that regardless of how much a local business it is NOT going to appear in a typical search on Google.  Keep in mind shoppers rarely get past the first three listings.

 

The Commission’s tough line is in sharp contrast with the US Federal Trade Commission which settled its own web search case with the company in 2013 by requiring Google to stop “scraping” reviews and other data from rival websites for its own products.

Google is not alone in rigging its searching results.  Facebook, Amazon, Yelp, and all the other online companies do EXACTLY the same thing.  The local business does not stand a chance when it attempts to reach new customers looking for their product.

One of my favorite examples is a local Italian bakery.  This Italian bakery has been in business forty years and is the only one in our local town.  Type in local Italian bakery, Italian bakery, Italian bakery in this local town and they do NOT show up until page 3 or 4 depending on what search engine.

Local media companies need to stop attempting to working with Google, Facebook, Amazon and the other tech giants and fight back.  Run stories about the corruption of these tech giants.  This is not a call for revolution but instead a pragmatic call to fight for the survival of local.

 

 

Amazon Expands into Health

Posted on by Richard Corriere

 

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway And JPMorgan Chase Launch New Health Care Company

Amazon moves into health care

When you read this following paragraph about the just announced new Amazon, J.P. Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway you should step back and consider what they really mean “free from profit-making incentives and constraints.”

Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett (left) in 2017; Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, in 2013; and JP Morgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon in 2013. Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon and JPMorgan Chase are teaming up to create a health care company announced Tuesday that is “free from profit-making incentives and constraints.”

Here’s what it means:
– this giants are using money from other divisions to fund this new health care company
– they are after data
– they aren’t doing it for profits
– they have the powerful Amazon cloud to power it.

Their stated goal is to provide high quality health care for their employees at a lower cost.

Their real goal is to control health care data.  Amazon is an voracious monopoly which uses its technology and reach to gobble up of the markets.  Berkshire Hathaway uses its power to buy up local newspapers and real estate offices.  Together they represent a threat to local businesses, local real estate agencies, local insurance companies.

Have no doubt!  Their health care idea is a good one.  Healthcare needs to be reformed and injected with more competition.  But sadly that is not the point.  The point is they have an unfair and monopolistic market advantage because they focus is not on healthcare but DATA.  Unfair because they are using their enormous business revenues to fund this new healthcare enterprise which means they will be willing to lose billions of dollars a year for many years to gain market dominance.