6 Most Important Things in Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 13, 3:42PM EDT · Published Mar 19, 5:06AM EDT

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6 Most Important Things in Business Today — © target.com

Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google will begin to make money from searches with e-commerce partners. According to Reuters:

Alphabet Inc’s Google routinely fields product queries from millions of shoppers. Now it wants to take a cut of their purchases, too.

The U.S. technology company is teaming up with retailers including Target Corp, Walmart Inc, Home Depot Inc, Costco Wholesale Corp and Ulta Beauty Inc.

Under a new program, retailers can list their products on Google Search, as well as on the Google Express shopping service, and Google Assistant on mobile phones and voice devices.

In exchange for Google listings and linking to retailer loyalty programs, the retailers pay Google a piece of each purchase, which is different from payments that retailers make to place ads on Google platforms.

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Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) is being sharply criticized for how its data is used to tailor messages to its members. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Facebook Inc. ignited a firestorm over how it manages third-party access to its users’ information, after the social network said a firm with ties to the 2016 Trump campaign improperly kept data for years despite saying it had destroyed those records.

U.S. and British lawmakers slammed Facebook over the weekend for not providing more information about how the data firm, Cambridge Analytica , came to access information about potentially tens of millions of the social network’s members without their explicit permission.

“Black Panther” topped the box office again over the weekend. According to Box Office Mojo:

For the fifth weekend in a row, Disney and Marvel’s Black Panther is the weekend’s number one film at the domestic box office, becoming the first film to accomplish that feat since Avatar in 2009. The film is also only the seventh film to ever gross over $600 million at the domestic box office as it continues to dominate, now less than $18 million shy of topping The Avengers and becoming the highest grossing superhero movie of all-time.

Publisher Meredith Corp. (NYSE: MDP) will cut corporate jobs at Time after a merger created duplicate positions. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Meredith Corp., the country’s largest magazine publisher, is expected to lay off 200 to 300 staffers as soon as this week after recently completing the acquisition of Time Inc., according to people familiar with the situation.

The job cuts, designed to reduce duplicative corporate staffing, are expected to primarily impact Time Inc.’s corporate employees in New York. The reductions are part of Meredith’s efforts to trim $400 million to $500 million in costs over the next two years.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has set a new course by designing its own smartphone screens. According to Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. is designing and producing its own device displays for the first time, using a secret manufacturing facility near its California headquarters to make small numbers of the screens for testing purposes, according to people familiar with the situation.

The technology giant is making a significant investment in the development of next-generation MicroLED screens, say the people, who requested anonymity to discuss internal planning. MicroLED screens use different light-emitting compounds than the current OLED displays and promise to make future gadgets slimmer, brighter and less power-hungry.

Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M) will start to provide mobile checkout at its stores. According to CNBC:

Macy’s wants to make checking out at its stores less of a hassle.

The company will roll out a mobile checkout option, powered by its mobile app, to all full-line Macy’s stores by the end of 2018, CEO Jeff Gennette said Sunday at the ShopTalk conference in Las Vegas.

The company is also adding an augmented reality shopping experience for furniture to the Macy’s app, hitting phones as early as next month for some shoppers. With the upgrade, customers will be able to virtually place Macy’s furniture within their own living spaces, seeing how it looks there before they buy.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.