The arrival of ubiquitous touchpoints
Amazon are pushing hard into finding ways to extend its formidable online marketplace with the ability to connect consumers in particular to its front end through mobile and other devices.
The recent successes of Amazon Echo, its intelligent speaker and Alexa speech recognition in the US has shown where voice activated services can really work well in a home or social setting.
It's still early days of what is called the "Internet of things" but is going to be huge in the way everyday objects will become "intelligent" and "Smart" enabling interaction with people and between object to object "talking" to one another to optimize various outcomes.
What will drive this is the ability to do "everything anywhere", the arrival of the Dash button from Amazon is one step in provided ubiquitous touchpoints between customers and the Internet of things.
Grabbing your attention
Its about grabbing the attention of people, in a recent Ofcom report, two thirds of people now own a smartphone, using it for nearly two hours every day to browse the internet, access social media, bank and shop online.
But that is only 2 hours represents at best only 10% of day, the 8 hours of working , then the time at home, in leisure pursuits this represents almost 70% to 80% not interacting with the internet or services
Looking beyond the connected button
The Amazon Dash button is such a device to grab the moments with you need to reorder stuff such as washing powder, food or other items you have ran out of, its quick and easy one press to setup and go. It is not the Amazon Echo / Alex system as there is no Interaction with the user but its another step in the direction to automation when this will be ubiquitous.
I see the Dash button as only a temporary solution but a key step on the road to the connected world it promises, and the ability to generate more revenue for the likes of Amazon. It will be interesting how the other major retailers react to this in building the digital enterprise of connected home, connected retail and connected everything.