Today marks the one-year anniversary of this newsletter. Thank you for making it a huge success! I’m always appreciative of your readership, friendship and helping grow the distribution list by forwarding it to others. Have a wonderful and safe Fourth of July!

Reading

Amazon wants to become Walmart before Walmart can become Amazon. That’s exactly why TechCrunch titled this column that.

Tencent comes up often in my classes at NYU. Bloomberg’s Brad Stone explored the backstory of one of China’s most powerful companies.

Speaking of NYU: Dennis Crowley, the founder of FourSquare, spoke to my class last semester. Now he’s tying his start-up knowledge to his passion.

The HomePod is coming this December. Above Avalon explored Apple’s newest product release.

Voice usage is only going to continue to grow. If you haven’t started to explore how to tie it into your SEO plans, you definitely should.

Speaking of voice: the music labels are also planning how to tailor their business to the tech, as reported by Billboard.

It’s no secret: Facebook will always have their own interests in mind first. But how far they have publisher’s interests in mind is always up for debate.

I met Vince Young once, at a bachelor party eating at his steakhouse in Austin. This is what he’s up to these days.

A few weeks ago, I attended the NBA Draft in Brooklyn. One of the stars of the night was Lonzo Ball, who went to the Lakers. Here’s what those couple days were like for him in a fascinating behind-the-scenes feature.

Rock and Roll.

My last newsletter had an open rate of 44.8% (+3.2%).

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