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Cameo Adds Live One-on-One Calls With Celebrities; Emojis Get a Refresh; McDonald’s Makes Self-Service Easier
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Welcome back. Cameo is moving beyond selling canned calls from celebrities to pitch live video chats with stars. Major tech companies keep upgrading their emojis to better engage the users on their platforms. And McDonald’s is responding to criticism that its self-service kiosks haven’t delivered for everyone.
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Fans can send celebrities a note before their call to ensure their conversation starts off smoothly. PHOTO: TIFFANY HAGLER-GEARD/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Cameo expanded its app to include a new feature to let fans meet one-on-one with celebrities in live video calls, Ann-Marie Alcántara writes for The Experience Report.
Celebrities and other public figures can set their own prices and time limits, with calls as short as 30 seconds and as long as 15 minutes. Prices vary, with actress Nikki Blonsky charging $10 for a five-minute chat and comedian Gilbert Gottfried seeking $75 for two minutes.
The company previously tested a live-call feature that allowed multiple friends on the line and used a Zoom integration.
Six months of testing for the feature led to some changes in the experience, such as allowing talent to schedule calls in advance. Both celebrities and fans wanted to prepare for the moment instead of just jumping in, Cameo said.
Celebrities can end calls at any time if a fan is abusing the feature.
"Because it is not anonymous and because you have to pay, you really have weeded out like a lot of the weirdness,” said Amanda Glanz, senior product manager at Cameo.
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Microsoft’s latest redesign of emojis on its platform added depth to the icons, including ‘face with tears of joy,’ as seen on the right. PHOTO: MICROSOFT
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A new batch of emojis came out last week, including a face holding back tears and hands making a heart shape, but big tech companies have also been busy updating their existing emojis, adding new visual polish, flexibility and sounds such as the bleat of a goat.
Facebook introduced 31 emojis with audio in July, including the one with the goat’s bleat, Ann-Marie Alcántara reports. Microsoft revamped more than 1,800 emojis, adding depth and animation. And Google redesigned 992 of its 3,521 emojis to make them appear more personable and accessible across cultures.
Technology companies’ efforts to improve emojis come after a long stretch of remote work for many people, expanding the importance of not only conferencing platforms like Zoom but emojis as well.
“When we’re using only text, then things like tone of voice and gesture and facial expressions get lost," said Paul Hunt, typeface designer and font developer at Adobe. "So using emoji as a communication tool can help to reintroduce some of that visual emotional content.”
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16,420
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The number of organizations and companies with paid Slack accounts that have adopted a recent feature letting users add pronouns to their profiles
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McDonald’s in 2015 introduced self-service ordering kiosks, which feature a button that can be pressed to call for staff assistance. Blind customers, however, complained help did not arrive fast enough, making the service less than equitable. PHOTO: JOSHUA LOTT/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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McDonald’s is upgrading some of its self-service kiosks to make them more accessible to blind people, Katie Deighton writes for The Experience Report.
Company-owned McDonald’s restaurants are mounting new keypads and headphone jacks onto the touch-screen kiosks it introduced in 2015. Blind users can connect their headphones to the system and browse the digital menu using screen-reader technology and tactile arrow buttons, adding items to their basket by pressing a central button.
McDonald’s said its existing self-service kiosks were rolled out in compliance with accessibility laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act.
But members of the National Federation of the Blind reported that often, no assistance arrived when they pressed the help button, said the organization’s general counsel, Scott LaBarre.
“We really encountered the barrier of not being able to use these machines, which were making life a lot more convenient for others,” he said.
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“If you cannot be kind, you cannot dine!”
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— A sign posted by Apt Cape Cod, a restaurant in Brewster, Mass., which shut for a day to give staffers a paid break after what its co-owner described as a spate of rough customer behavior. Companies that track consumer behavior are observing unusually high levels of crankiness and dissatisfaction.
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Amazon’s department stores could feature QR codes, touch screens and a nontraditional shopping experience. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: LYNNE CARTY/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL; PHOTOS: ISTOCK
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Amazon’s department stores might feature technology-infused dressing rooms and robots. [WSJ]
Why retail stores are doubling down on buy now, pay later services. [WSJ]
Personal styling company Stitch Fix unveiled a feature designed to mimic the multibrand displays of a department store. [Fast Company]
A Justice Department-led panel is investigating Zoom’s plan to buy customer-service company Five9. [WSJ]
The Hotels Network named Michael J. Goldrich as the company's chief experience officer. [Hotel Business]
Marketing agency Huge named Accenture Interactive’s Lisa De Bonis as its global chief experience officer. [Little Black Book]
PayPal brought peer-to-peer payments, direct deposits, cryptocurrency and other features into one platform. [TechCrunch]
OkCupid is letting users add pro-choice badges to their profiles. [The New York Times]
TikTok owner ByteDance rolled out a “youth mode” for Chinese users under 14, capping their screen time on the app to 40 minutes a day. [WSJ]
Newsletter compiled with Katie Deighton and Ann-Marie Alcántara
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