The biggest shocker of 2013? That it really is a wonderful world [http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/12/we-dont-want-to-believe-it-but-things-really-are-getting-better/] : > Next year marks a millennium since the sermon given by Archbishop Wulfstan in York where he declared that “the world is in a rush and is getting close

The Builder’s High [http://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-builders-high/]: > What’s the last thing you built when you got that high? You know that high I’m talking about? It’s staring at a thing that you brought into the world because you decided it needed to exist. For

Pizza Packaging Has Come a Long Way… [http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/12/an_evolution_of_innovative_technologically_advanced_pizza_boxes.html] : > Children tend to think of it as a little white dollhouse table, but the white plastic tripod inside your pizza box has an important

Almost Human: The Surreal, Cyborg Future of Telemarketing [http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/almost-human-the-surreal-cyborg-future-of-telemarketing/282537/] : > Let’s just put it out there: This a creepy system. On the Internet, no one may know you’re a dog, but on the phone? It just seems wrong. What

The NSA: An Inside View [http://lorensr.me/nsa-an-inside-view.html]: > Many are concerned about the NSA listening to their phone calls and reading their email messages. I believe that most should not be very concerned because most are not sending email to intelligence targets. Email that isn’t related

Facebook Wants to Be a Newspaper. [http://allthingsd.com/20131210/facebook-wants-to-be-a-newspaper-facebook-users-have-their-own-ideas/] : > Teams explored a number of user interface and product mock-ups with this idealized form of user behavior in mind. It was all housed under an umbrella project broadly blanketed under the term “Reader” (an initiative that was widely

Facebook Wants to Know Why You’re Self-Censoring Your Posts [http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/12/facebook_self_censorship_what_happens_to_the_posts_you_don_t_publish.html] : > In their article, Das and Kramer claim to only send back information to Facebook that indicates

Gaming Made Me: Charlie Brooker [http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/07/15/gaming-made-me-charlie-brooker-part-1/] : > It’s one of the best stories that I’ve seen in games, but there is still a ridiculous amount of just non-stop peril that’s slightly divorced from the story and I know there’s

“IT Buyers Shun Social Media” [http://in2.holmesreport.com/2013/11/it-buyers-shun-social-media-study/]: Arun Sudhaman: > New research suggests that IT buyers continue to shun social media, preferring search engines, personal networks, consultants, trade media and industry analysts when choosing their suppliers. The study, from CCgroup, polled 150 IT decision-makers in

The rise and fall of YouTube’s celebrity pioneers [http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/27/youtube-community]: From Wired UK: > “I remember Chad and Steve parading celebrities onto YouTube which made the community go fucking ape-shit,” said Paul.  “We completely mobbed their videos with shitty comments and

Inside the mind of Marc Andreessen [http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2013/11/21/marc-andreessen/]: > Facebook today is worth around $120 billion. So the market value of Facebook in the last two years has swung between about $40 billion and $120 billion, so maybe average it out to $80

Where’s Waldo? That’s Easy. A Foolproof Strategy for Locating the Stripe-Loving Cartoon Man. [http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/11/where_s_waldo_a_new_strategy_for_locating_the_missing_man_in_martin_hanford.html] : > I knew that Handford had placed Waldo in each of

Growth Hacking Word of Mouth | Ryan Hoover [http://ryanhoover.me/post/66965594138/growth-hacking-word-of-mouth]: > Sometimes effective growth hackers execute less scaleable tactics to drive WOM. Every Thursday, Dan Martell, CEO of Clarity, picks up the phone to call 25 to 30 users and asks how the company can make a

The Unacknowledged Compromise – Matt Gemmell [http://mattgemmell.com/2013/11/12/the-unacknowledged-compromise]: > By all means make a choice, and by all means obtain the maximum utility from it. Just don’t deceive yourself about the reasons for your decision. If you can only afford one machine, then that’s

“The Mission of Tesla” = great ‘blog’ PR [http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/mission-tesla]: > It is also why arsonists tend to favor gasoline. Trying to set the side of a building on fire with a battery pack is far less effective. Tesla is maybe my strongest example of communicating your

Am I Going Insane? Snapchat is Intrinsically Worthless [http://roymurdock.com/essays/2013/11/snapchat-is-intrinsically-worthless/]: > If we return to the graph at the beginning of the article we see that the value of Youtube is $1.5bn – this is the price Google bought it at in 2006. It’s

PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii – games for a generation [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/12/ps3-xbox-360-wii-games-generation] : > The greatest battle of this generation has been the one in which designers cede control to players. They won’t let go. They will have to let go.

Microsoft’s plan is stronger than you think [https://medium.com/product-design/3905096e5f71]: By me on Medium: > I think this advert is a great summary of why Microsoft, though attracting stick from innumerable directions for almost all its current products, is executing in just about the only effective way

How Jack Dorsey Makes Meetings At Square More Transparent [http://www.fastcompany.com/3021208/fast-feed/how-jack-dorsey-makes-meetings-at-square-transparent] : > “Any meeting of more than two people, someone’s required to take notes and send them to an [email] alias,” said Square’s founder and CEO. And that mentality extends to board meetings

Will Apple really move toward two iPad apps on screen? [http://tightwind.net/2013/11/where-does-the-ipad-go-from-here/]: > Many people have suggested that renaming the iPad the “iPad Air” sets the stage for an iPad Pro, presumably with a larger screen. It’s difficult to disagree with that, but I don’

The product design sprint: a five-day recipe for startups [http://www.designstaff.org/articles/product-design-sprint-2012-10-02.html]: > At Google Ventures, we do product design work with startups all the time. Since we want to move fast and they want to move fast, we’ve optimized a process that gets us

How To Write An Email [http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/11/how-to-write-an-email/]: > I spent several hours in school learning how to write a letter. From the correct placement of the address, right down to the “Yours sincerely / faithfully” – every aspect was drummed into me. That never happened with email.

Facebook’s future is in your past [http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/07/facebook-future]: My latest on Wired: > A wave of services like Timehop and SocialSafe are finally unleashing the years of data that you’ve built up in such profiles in a way that perhaps

Stevey’s Google Platforms Rant [https://plus.google.com/112678702228711889851/posts/eVeouesvaVX]: A great piece by a Googler that gets to the heart of G+’s real challenges, among other things.

Drinking With Your Eyes: How Wine Labels Trick Us Into Buying [http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/10/10/231458853/drinking-with-your-eyes-how-wine-labels-trick-us-into-buying] : > In his new book 99 Bottles of Wine, Schuemann spills the industry’s secrets about how wine labels tickle our subconscious and coerce us into grabbing a