Amazon Prime Day (and a Half) Will Be the Biggest One Yet
*By Max Godnick*
This year, Amazon's Prime Day is really more of a day and a half.
The thirty-six hour global shopping spree is the longest promotion in the event's four year history. While everything from light bulbs to luggage will be on sale, the made-up holiday is meant to drive shoppers to Amazon's own lines of products and devices.
"It's a really ingenious supervillain-type of idea by Jeff Bezos," said Matt Swider, the senior mobile and buying guides editor at TechRadar, in an interview with Cheddar on Thursday.
Prime Day's best deals have always centered around the company's own offerings such as the Echo, Kindle, and Fire suites. Swider says he expects the prices of those items to hit all-time lows when the event starts on July 16th.
"It's almost like the GoPros and the Playstations and the XBoxes are there to tempt you to the site, and then you'll buy Amazon products" he said.
This year, Amazon will extend the Prime Day deals to its brick-and-mortar Whole Foods and Amazon Go operations, bringing the day of savings into the real world for the first time ever.
Prime Day is Amazon's answer to the biggest shopping days of the holiday season: Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Swider said the company picked July because it's in a relatively quiet period in the national cycle of holidays and pop-culture events. While it hasn't quite lived up to the standards set by the end-of-the-year shopping rush, Prime Day fills a niche all its own: affordable home goods.
"It can't compare if you're looking for a Black Friday or a Cyber Monday," cautioned Swider. "If you're looking to pick up an item or two that you've been putting off, this is the time to buy it."
For the full segment, [click here.](https://cheddar.com/videos/everything-you-need-to-know-about-amazons-biggest-prime-day-yet)
Tech and entertainment giant Sony appears to be getting serious about automaking. An electric concept SUV — the Vision S-02 — was unveiled at CES 2022 and is slated to be produced by a new subdivision, Sony Mobility. This comes after the company revealed the Vision S concept Sedan at CES 2020.
According to the Labor Department December report, the U.S added 199,000 jobs as opposed to the more than 400,000 that had been expected. William M. Rodgers III, vice president and director of the Institute for Economic Equality at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, joined Cheddar's Baker Machado to talk about the state of the economy and noted that, despite the miss, the drop-off in the unemployment rate signaled to him that the economy is moving in the right direction. "There was an upward revision of about 100,000, a little more than 100,000, for the months of October and November, so, again, I'm not as worried or looking at this as negative as you all are," Rodgers added. He also noted the next three months would likely see slower growth due to the winter but stated that it would remain in a positive direction.
The New York Times has acquired sports outlet The Athletic in a $550 million deal. The acquisition brings the Times closer to its 10 million paid subscribers goal by 2025.
The year 2021 saw numerous natural disasters around the world, including extreme heat and wildfires, rare deep freezes, and historic flooding. This year's United Nations COP26 conference was key for getting world leaders on board with emissions reductions and other climate-focused policies as the UN Secretary-General said the agency's report on global warming is a 'code red for humanity.' In the U.S., President Joe Biden has focused most of his domestic agenda on slashing emissions and building climate-focused infrastructure. Guests from The Economist, UNC-Chapel Hill, Global Rescue, and more join Cheddar Climate's year-end special to discuss how the climate changed in 2021, and what to expect in 2022.
