Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #208

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:

23 and me: The complete James Bond – Medium. "Last week, while on vacation, I watched the BBC‘s absurdly fictionalized, Fleming – The Man Who Would Be Bond, an Ian Flemming biopic. It’s fun, and of a period, but does little to explain the goofy-camp-misogyny of James Bond as he’s been played over the years. Bond’s half-century span is a window into the ways our attitudes towards sins of all kinds have changed, and this chronicle of someone watching the entire oeuvre is well worth it." (Alistair for Hugh).
iOS 8 to stymie trackers and marketers with MAC address randomization – Are Technica. "I know you’ve been watching the Amazon/Hachette Book Group wars closely. But Apple is just as of big a player. When it decides that it wants something, it can wreak havoc on the industry. Just look at Healthkit, which centralizes health data on a phone (and crushes dozens of fledgling startups along the way.) Well, this one is a bit harder to parse, and far more far-reaching, and might have slipped past you. But that’s why I’m here, right? There’s a unique address in every Ethernet and wifi device called a MAC address, and it’s built in at birth. In fact, some people have been charged with hacking for altering it to hide their identity. And this unique fingerprint has been cleverly used by all manner of tracking tools, from security systems to store loyalty programs, to analyze consumers. Making the MAC address variable in iOS 8 is like burning everyone’s fingerprints off, and potentially a game-changer for a whole army of location-based passive marketing and analytics tools." (Alistair for Mitch).
“Let’s, Like, Demolish Laundry” – New York Magazine. "Including an infographic of almost a dozen laundry-related startups." (Hugh for Alistair).
“You should be left with a f*&king mess of unanswered questions” – Medium. "A long Q&A with one of my favorites, Louis C.K." (Hugh for Mitch).
Amazon.com plans local services marketplace this year – sources – Reuters. "Amazon announced this week a new streaming music service (currently only available in the US for their Amazon Prime members, and the catalogue is fairly limited). The news that they’re going to launch a local services marketplace this year is still fresh. I often think about the directories business and how they will ever thrive in a world where anybody looking for anything (in terms of a local business) can simply let their fingers do the walking on Google and how companies like Amazon, Craigslist and Angie’s List are attacking from all sides? It seems like consumers are not willing to do much work, when it comes to finding local businesses in their neighborhood. Everything is just a simple Google search away these days. And, if you think about this play for Amazon, it makes perfect sense. If they can optimize how you buy products with such an amazing level of efficiency, why can’t they do the same with services or local businesses? I’m sure there are many pundits who might argue with that statement, but I’m willing to bet that if Amazon does pull the trigger on a local services marketplace, it’s going to be a stunner." (Mitch for Alistair).
How Marvel’s API Will Change Cultural Criticism – Fast Company. "Let’s start with the facts: I’m a comic book nerd. It started before I could hardly read as a young chap, and I still can’t walk by a comic book store without walking in (if not just to grab a whiff of the latest releases or gaze at a classic cover). I love the artwork. I love the stories. I love the sentiment. With that, I also happen to watch the demise of the print industry with a hint a sadness and dose of ‘I told you so.’ As people lament the closing of book stores or the battle between book publishers and online merchants, I am constantly reminded of just how smart Marvel has been in its many years of ups and downs. What does a comic book publisher have to gain by opening up their API to the public (and who would care)? Maybe nothing dramatic at this moment in time, but who knows where this could all lead? Plus, it’s a great lesson for other, more traditional, brands to think about as well." (Mitch for Hugh).

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

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.