THE MARKETER QUARTERLY WINTER 2015 42 | MQ
AUSTRALIA
• Australia is the proud owner of Instagram’s most popular official national account. The country’s national page has more followers than any other country in the world, with more than a million followers. The account posts tourism-friendly images loaded with local flair and shots of kangaroos and the great vast outback.
• Netflix plans to launch in Australia and New Zealand in 2015. The company will offer its movie streaming subscription service in the land down-under, taking on the region’s existing streaming video service Quickflix
NORTH AMERICA
• Return Path has acquired its competitor Motley Bunch in a deal the terms of which were not disclosed. Motley Bunch’s technology allows clients to manage unstructured email data. It’s platform will help Return Path deepen its existing marketing intelligence services.
• Microsoft has been fighting back against a Department of Justice decision requiring the company to hand over private email data of its users. The data is question is stored on a server in Ireland and Microsoft asserts that it is out of U.S. jurisdiction.
• Google had introduced the beta version of Inbox, a new email client that rethinks the email experience. Inbox uses Bundles to automatically organize emails into groups in order to make it easier to navigate. The app is loaded with special features including the ability to unsend an email.
From top: NetFlix streams into Deutschland; Amazon’s grocery business rolls into San Diego.