Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #202

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another:

•  Outbox vs. USPS: How the Post Office Killed Digital Mail – Inside Sources. "I’ve spent the last year looking at how innovation happens (or doesn’t happen) in large organizations. This should be Exhibit A: while disruption is a good word in Silicon Valley, it’s often a dangerous idea in the halls of power. What happens when an awesome postal offering runs into the Postmaster General? ‘American citizens aren’t our customers — about 400 junk mailers are our customers. Your service hurts our ability to serve those customers.’ Just yikes — and a Hat Tip to Blake Robinson for sending me this one." (Alistair for Hugh).
• Guelph 80s family ends year of living in the past – CBC. "Every parent I know struggles with ‘screen time.’ On the one hand, we want our kids to be in the moment, communicating and interacting and healthy. On the other hand, they will grow up with a prosthetic brain on which they are increasingly reliant, a strange human-machine hybrid, and they’re getting ready for that. But few parents take this to the extremes that Blair McMillan and Morgan Patey did, living in the eighties for a year (one other notable example is the BBC documentary Electric Dreams, where a family gets a year’s technology each day, taking them from 1970 to 2000 in a month). Now the Guelph, Ontario-based family is finished their year of living in the past; here’s what they learned." (Alistair for Mitch).
• Fluffier, Brighter, Weirder Dinosaurs – Radiolab. "Back in 2003? or 2004? I got a writing job helping to develop the dinosaur exhibit for the Canadian Museum of Natural History. And it was my first true experience really using Wikipedia, which, despite its flaws, was an amazing tool for an independent researcher, writer, even back in 2003. And, I having received, I also gave: I wrote a good chunk of the Feathered Dinosaurs article, at Wikipedia. It’s (my God) 10 years later, and it appears that dinosaurs were even featherier than we thought." (Hugh for Alistair). 
• Debbie Harry: ‘Iggy Pop has been twerking for most of his career’ – The Guardian. "I think I’m including this link for the title alone. And, because I’m an old CBGBs fan." (Hugh for Mitch).
• Rude Salespeople Make You Buy Fancy Things – Pacific Standard. "I hate it when salespeople are pretentious, don’t you? I’ll walk by the high-end stores on Madison Avenue in New York City and fail to understand how people put up with salespeople who snub their nose at practically anyone who doesn’t fit a particular archetype. It’s the classic scene in Pretty Women when Richard Gere says, ‘we’re going to need more sucking here!’ after Julia Roberts gets the stinkeye. Well, it turns out that this is a very strategic move for these types of brands. Rude salespeople make the cash register ring in the luxury goods space. This is the type of stuff that Dan Ariely must just love. Me too." (Mitch for Alistair).
• A Eulogy for Twitter – The Atlantic. "Twitter got pummeled by the public markets this week. I love Twitter. That doesn’t mean I don’t struggle to see what the real business model will be. I’m not bullish on advertising as the sole revenue generator for media properties any more. It’s a tough thing to say (because I live and breathe in this space), but advertising has become a model of abundance and not scarcity (which is what made it so powerful). So, what is Twitter going to do to keep adding people, getting them to use the service more and generate real revenue against that? While I would never go so far as to say that ‘Twitter is dying,’ I do think that this piece points to some very real challenges that the company will need to address. Like I said, I love Twitter, and I know some of the people who work there. They are sharp. I am confident that they will figure this out and make it work. You?" (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook or wherever you play.