Scott’s Newsletter #7

Welcome to this week’s newsletter, a bi-weekly notebook of links and musings with no dependency on your phone having a headphone jack.

I announced this week that I’ll be teaching e-commerce marketing at NYU this semester. It was an opportunity, when approached, that I just couldn’t pass up — NYU is one of the top-ranked schools in the country. I hope to share some of what I’ll be teaching on my website throughout the semester. I’m also open to any recommended case studies related to e-commerce marketing, business models, etc.


Reading

The Washington Post recognizes the importance of page speed on mobile. Google, after all, says it’s an important factor in its search algorithm; Facebook said the same thing for landing pages from ads recently. The company is embracing PWA and AMP technology to make its experience even faster.

Mario is coming to iPhone. Surprised it didn’t happen sooner, but perhaps the company was waiting to tie it to a subscription model.

Paid search on digital voice assistants could be a $12 billion industry in 2021.

I’m a Spotify subscriber. I love the curated playlists — “Download Discover Weekly” is a Monday morning reminder on my phone. But their business model isn’t sustainable, especially if they want to get to profitability.

Mass app pre-loads just don’t work as a marketing tactic. If anything, it annoys consumers who can’t delete the app off their phones.

Apps, meanwhile, are hotter than ever, with time spent there now accounting for more than half the time American’s spend online.

Marketing tech > ad tech

SnapChat is moving towards an IPO. But just like Apple ventured into the news and music space, are they also getting all up in SnapChat’s business?

We just had the US Open in New York City. This ESPN behind-the-scenes feature on the folks who string the rackets is fascinating.

Is this the perfect movie trailer? IBM Watson thinks so.

How much time do you let your toddlers spend in front of your smartphone and tablet?

It sure is hard to find an affordable house in Silicon Valley, where economists are in high demand.

Clowns in the woods? This would scare the heck out of me if it were happening in my town.

Sometimes it’s best for all of us to just move on.

Rock and Roll.

Sign up for my bi-weekly newsletter where I’ll share what I’ve written about or read from around the web related to mobile, digital, emerging media and more. The newsletter is sent 8 p.m. ET on Sunday nights and appears on ScottStanchak.com 10 a.m. ET on Monday.

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