I have a lot of time to read during my hour-plus train ride into New York City and bus ride out every day — that’s another story. If I read something good, I usually share it on Twitter. But not everyone is on Twitter, follows me or sees what I share because it eventually gets buried in their never-ending feed.
That’s what has inspired me to start a bi-weekly digest featuring some of the best content I read the previous week. I’ll be sharing stories from around the web related to technology, mobile, leadership, and publishing, with the occasional random piece that’s a can’t miss. The digest will go out to my email list every other Sunday night (a bonus for being on the list) and appear on my website the following Monday mornings.
This “newsletter” will evolve over time. I hope to make it valuable enough you share with your friends, who share with theirs and so on. I’m always available to chat — feel free to reach out with any questions or feedback.
Lastly, happy Father’s Day to all the dad’s out there, including my own.
Last week I wrote about how one-touch payment will revolutionize mobile web monetization. This comes after Apple and Google announced their own solutions to combat mobile web’s low conversion.
If you’re a fan of technology and start-ups, there might not be any better show on TV than HBO’s “Silicon Valley.” The show is changing the world. The New Yorker went behind the scenes to learn how “Silicon Valley’s" producers nail the details (down to the code on the developers’ computer screens). Hint: Dick Costello, the former CEO of Twitter, has something to do with it.
It’s been one year since Apple went after Spotify and released their Apple Music product. This was Apple, just like they’ve done with Apple News, saying "we think there’s a lot of money to be made here and we want a piece.” Fast Company took a look at what is working, what needs to be fixed and whether Music is Apple’s silent concession that downloading music is dead.
Being a strong leader has nothing to do with the title on your business card. It has all to do with how your coach, empower, inspire and lead your employees in a safe environment. Harvard Business Review went deep to find the core competencies of the best leaders.
Whether you’re waiting for the primaries or not, election season is in full swing. We’re unofficially down to two candidates: Trump vs. Clinton. That means there are a lot of people from the Cruz, Rubio, Bush and other teams that are out of work. The Huffington Post sat down with three senior staff members from the three aforementioned candidates’ campaigns to see what they could have done differently to change the outcome and if they’ll vote for their party’s official nominee.
The world of digital media consumption is not shifting to mobile, it’s already shifted. Companies like The New York Times, BuzzFeed and The Washington Post all are seeing a majority of their traffic coming from smartphones. Neiman Lab reviewed The Pew Research Center’s “State of the News Media” report and pulled out the most impactful numbers, including that nearly half of all American adults consider Facebook their primary news resource.
I’m a major fan of Twitter. As the world shifts to consuming more live content, Twitter has been leading the social pack in that area — Facebook is definitely catching up and is further ahead from a video standpoint. Twitter’s stock also continues its decline, although this week it got a boost from the Microsoft-LinkedIn deal. The reason is because investors believe if LinkedIn can get $26.2b (in cash!), Twitter might be next to be sold for a premium. Nick Bilton, who wrote the great book “Hatching Twitter,” shares his view in Vanity Fair on who could open their wallet for the 10-year-old social platform.
Google wants to help clean up your Android device, according to Android Police. Google released functionality to help make the decision-making process easier when you need space on your device and want to download a new app from the Play Store. They'll now tell you what apps take up the most space that you never open anymore.
The geek in me was fascinated by this story from Pingdom about the downtime for the Top 50 e-commerce websites. Most of these companies are doing a tremendous job — 32 of the 50 have a 99.99% annual uptime percentage. Ticketmaster, however, has a lot of work to do.
Facebook and the rest of the tech industry are headed to Cannes to pitch their marketing and advertising solutions. Bloomberg previewed Facebook’s pitch, which contained this quote from Facebook’s vice president for global marketing solutions:
“If a company doesn’t become an expert at mobile marketing, they will be at a competitive disadvantage. The rate of disruption is faster than anything we’ve ever seen and marketers are having to rethink and rewire their business models.’’
As I’ve written in the past, companies need to focus on hiring talent that can optimize their mobile marketing and experiences. You can’t rely on someone with a web background to drive efficiency and maximize results in mobile. There’s a specialty knowledge required in this area.
Finally, let’s end on a positive note of good in this world, even on subway platforms.
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.