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Facebook Lays Out Its Future Plans at F8 Conference – Facebook showed high hopes and real products and services at the annual F8 developers conference this week. The big news centered around chatbot support in its popular Messenger platform, increased focus on AR/VR, and a whole slew of new advertising and video updates.
Read More: Everything announced at Facebook’s F8 conference today
Read More: Facebook’s 10-year roadmap outlined, eyes AI, VR, Internet access infrastructure
Read More: F8 2016 Keynote
Read More: Facebook launches Messenger platform with chatbots
With the Rise of Xero, Intuit Sells Quicken and Looks to Reinvent Itself – New Zealand-based startup Xero, a mobile-friendly tax and accounting software firm, has forced Intuit to sell Quicken and reevaluate its business strategy. Intuit faced deep difficulties competing with the startup due to their mobile-friendly, cloud-based solution that was incredibly intuitive for users. Intuit will now focus on its cloud-based solutions (QuickBooks Online and TurboTax), but questions remain as to whether or not Intuit will be able to recapture lost market share.
Read More: Intuit Sheds Its PC Roots and Rises as a Cloud Software Company

Big Changes for Industry-Leading Loyalty Program – In an effort to reward higher-value customers and inject more technology into the coffee experience, Starbucks unveiled controversial changes to its mobile app this week. The app is designed to enhance the mobile experience and make better use of the company’s content partnerships (with Spotify, for example). But the controversy largely centers around changes to the rewards program.
Read More: The Starbucks App Gets More Rewarding with Redesign
Read More: Starbucks Rolls Out a More Personalized Mobile App Along with a Revamped Rewards Program

Ad-blocking Browser ‘Brave’ Ruffles Publishers’ Feathers – A new web browser created by former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich has based its entire business model on controlling ads shown to users, which has caused significant pushback from publishers already struggling to adapt to the digital world. Their response? Send a ‘cease and desist’ letter to the company that categorizes Brave’s business model as outright thievery. Brave blocks ads and designates revenue allocations, as well as enabling users to receive an ad-free experience if they send bitcoin donations to publishers. While the dispute isn’t front page news, expect other publishers to ‘join suit’ if the dispute remains unresolved.
Read More: ‘BLATANTLY ILLEGAL’: 17 newspapers slam ex-Mozilla CEO’s new ad-blocking browser
Read More: Full Text of Cease and Desist Letter Sent to Brave Software, Inc.

Featured CXOTalk video of the week: Episode 30: Frank Modruson and Andrew Wilson, CIOs, Accenture

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