Image Source: Amazon.com

When Amazon announced plans for package delivery by drones, it was largely hailed as a marketing stunt. Last week, the company had its first successful drone delivery in England. The viability of drone deliveries is still hotly debated, and large scale adoption, especially in dense urban areas, is realistically still a ways off. But because there are a lot of ways this could affect e-commerce marketing and advertising, we thought it was a worthy item to kick off today’s roundup of news and opinions from around the web.

Amazon delivered its first order via drone

As reported by Marketing Land, the delivery happened on December 7, when Richard B. of Cambridgeshire, England, placed an order and received his goods just 13 minutes later. The speedy delivery was made possible by the fact that the customer lives very close to one of Amazon’s fulfillment centers. And Amazon is actually promising drone deliveries within 30 minutes — an undertaking that suggests drone deliveries will likely be limited, at least in the beginning, to major population centers where Amazon will have plenty of customers within range of its fulfillment centers.

As IoT Ads Become Reality, Privacy and Security Concerns Follow

Ads have already come to the so-called Internet of Things, an Interactive Advertising Bureau report has found, reports Kate Kaye of AdAge. The trade organization surveyed consumers about “IoT” devices, things connected to the web ranging from fitness wearables to cars, and found that 62% of people who own any have already seen an ad on one. The IAB’s Internet of Things study, conducted in conjunction with research firm MARU VCR&C, also found that a significant portion of consumers, particularly ones who own devices like health trackers, smart TVs or web-connected eyeglasses, are comfortable with ads popping up in them. But…all of this data tracking does compound security and privacy concerns.