🗝 Planning for the worst
The New York Times quietly announced a positive new security measure yesterday. Its Lock & Key system will keep an eye on public dumps of stolen usernames and passwords, and if any match your New York Times login, they’ll let you know and make you change your password.
In other words, if you’re using the same password across multiple services (not advisable), this makes you that little bit safer.
It doesn’t sound like that much of a big deal on its own, but it made me think about how too much online security work is reactive, rather than preventative.
Just think about the recent story about fitness tracking company Polar. A flaw in the way they’d set up their service meant anyone could browse through the activity records of all Polar users, simply by adjusting the URL in their browser.
That’s the kind of flaw that shouldn’t make it past the earliest stages of development. How did no-one at Polar think about that potential problem? Software developers have lots of different priorities to juggle, but security should underpin them all. It’s in the best interests of users, and also the software publisher’s legal budget.
I’m generally an optimist, but when it comes to planning or developing anything involving the public, I always assume the worst outcome. It probably won’t happen, but at least you’ll be prepared if it does.
Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2uuMGd9
Martin Bryant,
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
The New York Times quietly announced a positive new security measure yesterday. Its Lock & Key system will keep an eye on public dumps of stolen usernames and passwords, and if any match your New York Times login, they’ll let you know and make you change your password.
In other words, if you’re using the same password across multiple services (not advisable), this makes you that little bit safer.
It doesn’t sound like that much of a big deal on its own, but it made me think about how too much online security work is reactive, rather than preventative.
Just think about the recent story about fitness tracking company Polar. A flaw in the way they’d set up their service meant anyone could browse through the activity records of all Polar users, simply by adjusting the URL in their browser.
That’s the kind of flaw that shouldn’t make it past the earliest stages of development. How did no-one at Polar think about that potential problem? Software developers have lots of different priorities to juggle, but security should underpin them all. It’s in the best interests of users, and also the software publisher’s legal budget.
I’m generally an optimist, but when it comes to planning or developing anything involving the public, I always assume the worst outcome. It probably won’t happen, but at least you’ll be prepared if it does.
Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2uuMGd9
Martin Bryant,
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
📣 Heavy Social Media Users Most Receptive to Influencers
According to GWI, the effectiveness of influencer marketing varies with how long people spend on social media.
The trend in the chart is clear to see: the heaviest #SocialMedia users are the most likely to be discovering new brands via celebrities endorsements, vlogs and expert bloggers.
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
📖 via GWI: prs.pctvix.co/2LbD2GR
According to GWI, the effectiveness of influencer marketing varies with how long people spend on social media.
The trend in the chart is clear to see: the heaviest #SocialMedia users are the most likely to be discovering new brands via celebrities endorsements, vlogs and expert bloggers.
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
📖 via GWI: prs.pctvix.co/2LbD2GR
🐻 Watching out for bear traps
BuzzFeed made a big splash with its story yesterday that Mark Zuckerberg called a valued customer to congratulate him on his success. Yes, he called Donald Trump after his 2016 election win. Indeed, Facebook apparently views the Trump campaign as one of its best customers.
The story highlights an important point; many people increasingly want companies to take a moral stance – to be more ‘human’ and less impartial. And when it comes to the Trump presidency, with all the stories of Russian collusion, the poor treatment of immigrant children and all the rest, well – it’s hard not to take a stance. You’re either against Trump, or you wholeheartedly endorse him, in many people’s eyes.
In real life though, Facebook is like any big corporation. It has to 'cosy up’ to whoever is in office to make sure it is in the best position to make money for its shareholders. The big difference is, unlike 'Big Oil’ or 'Big Health,’ Facebook has the power to make or break a president by directly influencing the electorate.
If Facebook did take a clear anti-Trump stance, it would likely trigger a political storm of right-wingers calling for it to be broken up to limit its power. So, you can understand why Zuckerberg treads so carefully and appears so morally bankrupt.
His Holocaust denial misstep this week was an example of him focusing all his attention on treading so carefully that he missed where he was going and put his foot straight into a bear trap. He’ll have to hope that staying neutral on the Trump presidency doesn’t turn out to be the biggest, most painful bear trap of all.
Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2zWgioT
Martin Bryant,
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
BuzzFeed made a big splash with its story yesterday that Mark Zuckerberg called a valued customer to congratulate him on his success. Yes, he called Donald Trump after his 2016 election win. Indeed, Facebook apparently views the Trump campaign as one of its best customers.
The story highlights an important point; many people increasingly want companies to take a moral stance – to be more ‘human’ and less impartial. And when it comes to the Trump presidency, with all the stories of Russian collusion, the poor treatment of immigrant children and all the rest, well – it’s hard not to take a stance. You’re either against Trump, or you wholeheartedly endorse him, in many people’s eyes.
In real life though, Facebook is like any big corporation. It has to 'cosy up’ to whoever is in office to make sure it is in the best position to make money for its shareholders. The big difference is, unlike 'Big Oil’ or 'Big Health,’ Facebook has the power to make or break a president by directly influencing the electorate.
If Facebook did take a clear anti-Trump stance, it would likely trigger a political storm of right-wingers calling for it to be broken up to limit its power. So, you can understand why Zuckerberg treads so carefully and appears so morally bankrupt.
His Holocaust denial misstep this week was an example of him focusing all his attention on treading so carefully that he missed where he was going and put his foot straight into a bear trap. He’ll have to hope that staying neutral on the Trump presidency doesn’t turn out to be the biggest, most painful bear trap of all.
Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2zWgioT
Martin Bryant,
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
💸 The Price Tag Attached to Data Breaches
A recent poll showed that of major U.S. internet companies, Twitter is the least trusted when it comes to keeping data secure. Of course, no company has a fail-safe method of data protection and the consequences of a leak can be severe. As well as the negative effect on public image and reputation, the infographic below shows the average monetary cost of a data breach.
As reported by IBM Security and the Ponemon Institute, the costs are the highest in the U.S. with the average incident coming with a price tag of $7.91 million. Although one may assume that such leaks are always caused by criminal activity, 25 percent of the cases examined were actually due to human error.
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
📖 via Statista: prs.pctvix.co/2JE25N2
A recent poll showed that of major U.S. internet companies, Twitter is the least trusted when it comes to keeping data secure. Of course, no company has a fail-safe method of data protection and the consequences of a leak can be severe. As well as the negative effect on public image and reputation, the infographic below shows the average monetary cost of a data breach.
As reported by IBM Security and the Ponemon Institute, the costs are the highest in the U.S. with the average incident coming with a price tag of $7.91 million. Although one may assume that such leaks are always caused by criminal activity, 25 percent of the cases examined were actually due to human error.
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
📖 via Statista: prs.pctvix.co/2JE25N2
🌗 Walking on the Moon
49 years today (21 July 1969) 👨🚀 Buzz Aldrin & 👨🚀 Neil Armstrong made those historic first steps onto the Moon.
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
49 years today (21 July 1969) 👨🚀 Buzz Aldrin & 👨🚀 Neil Armstrong made those historic first steps onto the Moon.
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
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🚗 Skateboard + Car
Rinspeed presented a modular driverless concept car consisting of a giant skateboard, on top of which a passenger pod can be attached.
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
Rinspeed presented a modular driverless concept car consisting of a giant skateboard, on top of which a passenger pod can be attached.
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
The channel that gonna give you so much fresh and interesting facts about world around you! Join and you won't regret!
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@statistics_facts
📧 Email deserves better than this
For all we rely on email, its core technology hasn’t changed much in decades.
Think about it – all the innovations in the field of email are features that could be baked into a standard that would make life easier for everyone.
Most recently there’s ‘snooze’ – the ability to archive a message and have it return to your inbox at a certain time when you’re ready to deal with it – but other features like message priority and 'recalling’ emails have existed in certain email software for years without being universally supported.
It’s tough to predict how your email will be handled when it’s received. Think about the politician or PR person desperately trying to 'recall’ a mistakenly sent email, perhaps not known that it will only be worthwhile if the person at the other end uses Microsoft Outlook and hasn’t read the email yet.
And 'snooze’ is a common feature in modern email apps, but it’s one that encourages you to stick to one app and never switch. Snooze an email in Gmail, and Gmail will send it back to your inbox at the time you requested. Snooze a Gmail email in Outlook, and Microsoft’s servers handle it, likewise with the myriad email-focused startups. I once tried five email apps in a week and completely lost track of where all my snoozes were being tracked. It’s also why I have five different 'snooze’ labels in my Gmail.
All of this is to say; I wish we had an email standards body comparable to the W3C, which handles Web standards. From 1996 to 2002 there was an Internet Mail Consortium that could have fulfilled this role, but no such organisation exists today. As a result, email is a messy Wild West of confusing technologies. Sure, email is long in the tooth, and we all love to hate it, but it deserves better than that.
Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2LiENSz
Martin Bryant,
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
For all we rely on email, its core technology hasn’t changed much in decades.
Think about it – all the innovations in the field of email are features that could be baked into a standard that would make life easier for everyone.
Most recently there’s ‘snooze’ – the ability to archive a message and have it return to your inbox at a certain time when you’re ready to deal with it – but other features like message priority and 'recalling’ emails have existed in certain email software for years without being universally supported.
It’s tough to predict how your email will be handled when it’s received. Think about the politician or PR person desperately trying to 'recall’ a mistakenly sent email, perhaps not known that it will only be worthwhile if the person at the other end uses Microsoft Outlook and hasn’t read the email yet.
And 'snooze’ is a common feature in modern email apps, but it’s one that encourages you to stick to one app and never switch. Snooze an email in Gmail, and Gmail will send it back to your inbox at the time you requested. Snooze a Gmail email in Outlook, and Microsoft’s servers handle it, likewise with the myriad email-focused startups. I once tried five email apps in a week and completely lost track of where all my snoozes were being tracked. It’s also why I have five different 'snooze’ labels in my Gmail.
All of this is to say; I wish we had an email standards body comparable to the W3C, which handles Web standards. From 1996 to 2002 there was an Internet Mail Consortium that could have fulfilled this role, but no such organisation exists today. As a result, email is a messy Wild West of confusing technologies. Sure, email is long in the tooth, and we all love to hate it, but it deserves better than that.
Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2LiENSz
Martin Bryant,
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
💸 Princely sums
#Fortnite is spearheading a broader trend that saw the battle royale genre rise to huge popularity this year. According to SuperData’s estimates, the genre will generate $12.6 billion in revenue this year, up from just $1.7 billion in 2017. An end to the Fortnite and battle royale craze is not in sight: with more and more game studios trying to capitalize on the hottest gaming trend, battle royale revenue is expected to climb to $20 billion next year.
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
📖 via Statista: prs.pctvix.co/2uZVKpR
#Fortnite is spearheading a broader trend that saw the battle royale genre rise to huge popularity this year. According to SuperData’s estimates, the genre will generate $12.6 billion in revenue this year, up from just $1.7 billion in 2017. An end to the Fortnite and battle royale craze is not in sight: with more and more game studios trying to capitalize on the hottest gaming trend, battle royale revenue is expected to climb to $20 billion next year.
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
📖 via Statista: prs.pctvix.co/2uZVKpR
🔐 The key to good security?
Every form of security is a balance between convenience and effectiveness. It would be really convenient to have all your online passwords set as ‘123456,’ but it wouldn’t be very secure. Likewise if the airport let you just walk straight onto a plane without checking your bags.
At the other end of the scale when it comes to online security are physical keys. Google says it has eliminated the problem of people phishing its employees by forcing them all to use hardware security keys to log in.
That’s a huge endorsement for the idea of nudging people away from convenience, and treating their online information as something worth keeping safe.
Hardware security keys from companies like Yubico eliminate the need for passwords on many online services. As long as the key is plugged into your computer, you’ll be automatically logged in. Some models work with mobile devices too.
Personally I’ve shied away from using a hardware key for my own security because of the chance I’ll be caught without it just at the time I really need to log in. But then, I always have my house keys and my wallet with me, so why would this be any different?
As Wired found, locking down your Google account this way can cause some other minor inconveniences. But if you can trust yourself to look after a hardware key and always have it with you, I’d very much recommend looking into it.
Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2LEnOtn
Martin Bryant,
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
Every form of security is a balance between convenience and effectiveness. It would be really convenient to have all your online passwords set as ‘123456,’ but it wouldn’t be very secure. Likewise if the airport let you just walk straight onto a plane without checking your bags.
At the other end of the scale when it comes to online security are physical keys. Google says it has eliminated the problem of people phishing its employees by forcing them all to use hardware security keys to log in.
That’s a huge endorsement for the idea of nudging people away from convenience, and treating their online information as something worth keeping safe.
Hardware security keys from companies like Yubico eliminate the need for passwords on many online services. As long as the key is plugged into your computer, you’ll be automatically logged in. Some models work with mobile devices too.
Personally I’ve shied away from using a hardware key for my own security because of the chance I’ll be caught without it just at the time I really need to log in. But then, I always have my house keys and my wallet with me, so why would this be any different?
As Wired found, locking down your Google account this way can cause some other minor inconveniences. But if you can trust yourself to look after a hardware key and always have it with you, I’d very much recommend looking into it.
Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2LEnOtn
Martin Bryant,
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
Forwarded from 🦅 [ perspective ix ]
💺 How to be a good armchair critic
A little knowledge can be a deceptive thing. If you see a problem in the world, and know about current technologies, you can believe you have an ‘obvious’ solution. But it can often turn out to be much more complicated to deploy than you’d ever assume.
Take Twitter’s current problem with cryptocurrency scams. You might have seen these in the replies to tweets by popular figures in the world of tech. Scammers create an account and make it look like it’s one of these popular figures. So, username ’@as9uqfahaj29s’ might have Elon Musk’s profile photo and display name.
This account then replies to one of Musk’s tweets, making it look to the casual observer like he’s simply creating a thread. The 'fake Musk’ encourages his fans to send him cryptocurrency with the promise of getting more back via a 'giveaway.’
To counter this, Twitter has now banned non-verified accounts from using the display name 'Elon Musk.’ Presumably, similar measures have been taken to protect other oft-impersonated accounts.
The problem? At least one scammer has used a stolen verified account instead. They also used a non-standard letter 'n.’
Thinking about this problem, I tweeted earlier: “There must be a way to beat this problem based on language patterns of what people post in replies to verified accounts.”
Then it struck me; I had a good enough idea on paper, but am I a software engineer at Twitter? Do I know how technically feasible it is for them to apply filters like that to tweets? Sure, their current solution is a bit of a hack, but it should at least reduce the frequency of these scams.
The best armchair critic is a well-informed armchair critic. If you’re going to call out people for being wrong, remember to consider everything you know you don’t know (the 'known unknowns,’ as Donald Rumsfeld might say) first. Otherwise, your argument will fall apart at the first hurdle.
Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2A6hkyP
Martin Bryant,
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
A little knowledge can be a deceptive thing. If you see a problem in the world, and know about current technologies, you can believe you have an ‘obvious’ solution. But it can often turn out to be much more complicated to deploy than you’d ever assume.
Take Twitter’s current problem with cryptocurrency scams. You might have seen these in the replies to tweets by popular figures in the world of tech. Scammers create an account and make it look like it’s one of these popular figures. So, username ’@as9uqfahaj29s’ might have Elon Musk’s profile photo and display name.
This account then replies to one of Musk’s tweets, making it look to the casual observer like he’s simply creating a thread. The 'fake Musk’ encourages his fans to send him cryptocurrency with the promise of getting more back via a 'giveaway.’
To counter this, Twitter has now banned non-verified accounts from using the display name 'Elon Musk.’ Presumably, similar measures have been taken to protect other oft-impersonated accounts.
The problem? At least one scammer has used a stolen verified account instead. They also used a non-standard letter 'n.’
Thinking about this problem, I tweeted earlier: “There must be a way to beat this problem based on language patterns of what people post in replies to verified accounts.”
Then it struck me; I had a good enough idea on paper, but am I a software engineer at Twitter? Do I know how technically feasible it is for them to apply filters like that to tweets? Sure, their current solution is a bit of a hack, but it should at least reduce the frequency of these scams.
The best armchair critic is a well-informed armchair critic. If you’re going to call out people for being wrong, remember to consider everything you know you don’t know (the 'known unknowns,’ as Donald Rumsfeld might say) first. Otherwise, your argument will fall apart at the first hurdle.
Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2A6hkyP
Martin Bryant,
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
🛰 Facebook settles into orbit
Facebook’s epic stock price drop on news of slowing growth showed how fickle markets can be, and how they can work against the broader best interests of a company.
Companies can’t have rocket-powered growth forever. At some point, the fuel runs out, or the rocket goes as high as it possibly can. The question is, which is it with Facebook?
The company is currently wrestling with problems no company has ever had before. With 2.5 billion people having used at least one of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger in June, it has unparalleled scale and reach. But the problems it faces don’t have the engineering-based solutions it’s used to.
Data mishandling, misinformation, interference by nation states, users having had enough of social media… these are largely human problems that the company has to solve through empathy, negotiation and listening. And as we’ve seen in recent weeks, Facebook has an almighty difficulty solving problems that need high emotional intelligence to figure out.
In fact, given all that’s happened recently, it’s a wonder that daily active users grew at all.
It feels like this is a turning point. Facebook accelerated up into space, and now with slowing growth, it’s settling into orbit.
I can’t see Mark Zuckerberg’s mission of connecting the world changing any time soon, and given his grip on the company, shareholders would struggle to remove him even if they wanted to.
If he wants to break out of a settled orbit and achieve even more, he’s is going to have to decide what is next for Facebook. What will fuel even more growth to connect the world and keep shareholders happy? It may turn out to be something totally different from what it’s doing now.
Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2NOcZCn
Martin Bryant,
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
Facebook’s epic stock price drop on news of slowing growth showed how fickle markets can be, and how they can work against the broader best interests of a company.
Companies can’t have rocket-powered growth forever. At some point, the fuel runs out, or the rocket goes as high as it possibly can. The question is, which is it with Facebook?
The company is currently wrestling with problems no company has ever had before. With 2.5 billion people having used at least one of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger in June, it has unparalleled scale and reach. But the problems it faces don’t have the engineering-based solutions it’s used to.
Data mishandling, misinformation, interference by nation states, users having had enough of social media… these are largely human problems that the company has to solve through empathy, negotiation and listening. And as we’ve seen in recent weeks, Facebook has an almighty difficulty solving problems that need high emotional intelligence to figure out.
In fact, given all that’s happened recently, it’s a wonder that daily active users grew at all.
It feels like this is a turning point. Facebook accelerated up into space, and now with slowing growth, it’s settling into orbit.
I can’t see Mark Zuckerberg’s mission of connecting the world changing any time soon, and given his grip on the company, shareholders would struggle to remove him even if they wanted to.
If he wants to break out of a settled orbit and achieve even more, he’s is going to have to decide what is next for Facebook. What will fuel even more growth to connect the world and keep shareholders happy? It may turn out to be something totally different from what it’s doing now.
Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2NOcZCn
Martin Bryant,
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
According to stackoverflow (2018), knowing HTML and JS can get you 55,000$ per year.
Simplify your learning with @thefrontend by getting tips and tricks in mobile and web development🔥
Simplify your learning with @thefrontend by getting tips and tricks in mobile and web development🔥
⛓ Don’t mention the blockchain
A tweet by TNW’s Matthew Hughes yesterday highlighted to me just how sick tech journalists have become of receiving blockchain-related pitches. Seriously, they get loads. Every day.
And when they get a load of trashy pitches about things ‘on the blockchain,’ they become averse to any and all pitches that mention that word - even the good ones.
On the entrepreneur’s side, Startup Weekend founder Andrew Hyde tweeted last week about how he couldn’t get any journalists interested in a genuinely worthwhile blockchain-based project. The reason? See above.
My solution is simple – don’t mention blockchain when you pitch a journalist. You wouldn’t mention the cloud storage provider you use (hopefully!), so why mention anything else about your backend technology?
Instead, focus on the core value proposition to your users. No-one except a few geeks is going to use your product just because it’s based on a blockchain. So why should they really use it? What’s the benefit that makes it better than the competition? That’s your in.
The sooner technologists stop using the word ‘blockchain’ to attract journalists and end users, the better. Your technology is a means to an end – not a differentiator in and of itself.
Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2mOdXTD
Martin Bryant,
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
A tweet by TNW’s Matthew Hughes yesterday highlighted to me just how sick tech journalists have become of receiving blockchain-related pitches. Seriously, they get loads. Every day.
And when they get a load of trashy pitches about things ‘on the blockchain,’ they become averse to any and all pitches that mention that word - even the good ones.
On the entrepreneur’s side, Startup Weekend founder Andrew Hyde tweeted last week about how he couldn’t get any journalists interested in a genuinely worthwhile blockchain-based project. The reason? See above.
My solution is simple – don’t mention blockchain when you pitch a journalist. You wouldn’t mention the cloud storage provider you use (hopefully!), so why mention anything else about your backend technology?
Instead, focus on the core value proposition to your users. No-one except a few geeks is going to use your product just because it’s based on a blockchain. So why should they really use it? What’s the benefit that makes it better than the competition? That’s your in.
The sooner technologists stop using the word ‘blockchain’ to attract journalists and end users, the better. Your technology is a means to an end – not a differentiator in and of itself.
Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2mOdXTD
Martin Bryant,
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
🎧 Spotify and the future of… news?
I was impressed this morning when I went to Twitter’s search tab in its mobile app and scrolled through the recommended tweets. If you’ve never done this, it’s a great way of finding things you’ll probably be interested in that don’t make it into your main feed. Today, Twitter recommended a bunch of tweets about some new Aphex Twin activity in London.
Twitter knows I follow Aphex Twin, and knew there was a flurry of tweets about him from outside my network, so it showed them to me. And I was very glad it did.
Algorithms are getting better than ever at giving us what we’ll definitely like. Critics of this approach rightly point out that it isn’t always positive, as people aren’t exposed to new and different viewpoints. But maybe there’s hope on that front if we look at Spotify.
When it comes to music, I’ve pretty much entirely deferred my discovery of new artists and songs to Spotify. Its Discover Weekly and Release Radar playlists have introduced me to more new music than any radio station or the music press over the past few years.
The music it recommends doesn’t always sound like things I already like. I’ve had my listening expanded to weird, experimental hip-hop; krautrock from the 70s I’d never have listened to without a nudge; Indian music that’s somewhere between electronica and a mantra, and also some of what have turned out to be my favourite artists of the past few years.
Good quality recommendation tech is now learning how to expand your world view, a little at a time, and Spotify is leading the way. Maybe there’s something news apps can learn from its approach, to help make us better informed by nudging our filter bubbles ever larger.
Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2vhDqIZ
Martin Bryant,
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
I was impressed this morning when I went to Twitter’s search tab in its mobile app and scrolled through the recommended tweets. If you’ve never done this, it’s a great way of finding things you’ll probably be interested in that don’t make it into your main feed. Today, Twitter recommended a bunch of tweets about some new Aphex Twin activity in London.
Twitter knows I follow Aphex Twin, and knew there was a flurry of tweets about him from outside my network, so it showed them to me. And I was very glad it did.
Algorithms are getting better than ever at giving us what we’ll definitely like. Critics of this approach rightly point out that it isn’t always positive, as people aren’t exposed to new and different viewpoints. But maybe there’s hope on that front if we look at Spotify.
When it comes to music, I’ve pretty much entirely deferred my discovery of new artists and songs to Spotify. Its Discover Weekly and Release Radar playlists have introduced me to more new music than any radio station or the music press over the past few years.
The music it recommends doesn’t always sound like things I already like. I’ve had my listening expanded to weird, experimental hip-hop; krautrock from the 70s I’d never have listened to without a nudge; Indian music that’s somewhere between electronica and a mantra, and also some of what have turned out to be my favourite artists of the past few years.
Good quality recommendation tech is now learning how to expand your world view, a little at a time, and Spotify is leading the way. Maybe there’s something news apps can learn from its approach, to help make us better informed by nudging our filter bubbles ever larger.
Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2vhDqIZ
Martin Bryant,
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
🔥 A hot take on hot takes
Over the weekend I read an article about the effect on our brains of making everything on Twitter a lightning-fast joke. Instead of taking time to understand something, we race to react and then move on.
This ‘quick judgment’ and move on attitude is everywhere now. When evidence of underpowered MacBook Pros emerged recently, people raced to give their hot take on what they believed was happening, without waiting for Apple’s explanation. Apple fixed the problem days later via a software update, but only after people had rushed to accuse them of deliberately under-powering Macs, or having abandoned the pro market entirely via a mistake that supposedly showed they didn’t care.
Meanwhile, images purporting to show the Google Pixel 3XL smartphone appeared yesterday. Judging by the reaction from some quarters, the fact it had a large notch was enough to doom it entirely. Never mind we haven’t seen how Google might be using that notch or what it might do with the screen space either side…
These are largely inconsequential examples maybe, but I’d argue they apply to how many people process big stories like Brexit, too. 'There was a referendum, let’s just get on with it,’ they say, while failing to engage with anything that indicates that maybe things won’t be too rosy after the UK leaves the EU. There’s just too much news these days for people to take it all in.
Being constantly bombarded with new information forces us to process it only lightly, applying and sharing a quick opinion based on our prejudices and past experiences. After all, there’ll be another news story to think about in a minute.
And if we don’t think about what’s happening around us in depth, then it’s easy to miss truly important trends happening just below the surface. And it’s frightening to think who might take advantage of that… and who already has.
Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2uYzzRJ
Martin Bryant,
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
Over the weekend I read an article about the effect on our brains of making everything on Twitter a lightning-fast joke. Instead of taking time to understand something, we race to react and then move on.
This ‘quick judgment’ and move on attitude is everywhere now. When evidence of underpowered MacBook Pros emerged recently, people raced to give their hot take on what they believed was happening, without waiting for Apple’s explanation. Apple fixed the problem days later via a software update, but only after people had rushed to accuse them of deliberately under-powering Macs, or having abandoned the pro market entirely via a mistake that supposedly showed they didn’t care.
Meanwhile, images purporting to show the Google Pixel 3XL smartphone appeared yesterday. Judging by the reaction from some quarters, the fact it had a large notch was enough to doom it entirely. Never mind we haven’t seen how Google might be using that notch or what it might do with the screen space either side…
These are largely inconsequential examples maybe, but I’d argue they apply to how many people process big stories like Brexit, too. 'There was a referendum, let’s just get on with it,’ they say, while failing to engage with anything that indicates that maybe things won’t be too rosy after the UK leaves the EU. There’s just too much news these days for people to take it all in.
Being constantly bombarded with new information forces us to process it only lightly, applying and sharing a quick opinion based on our prejudices and past experiences. After all, there’ll be another news story to think about in a minute.
And if we don’t think about what’s happening around us in depth, then it’s easy to miss truly important trends happening just below the surface. And it’s frightening to think who might take advantage of that… and who already has.
Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2uYzzRJ
Martin Bryant,
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
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👾 Game Boy's Birthday
Game Boy was first released on the 100th anniversary of #Nintendo in 🇯🇵 on April 21, 1989, in 🇺🇸 on July 31, 1989 & in 🇪🇺 on September 28, 1990.
#History
🚀 @PerspectiveIX
Game Boy was first released on the 100th anniversary of #Nintendo in 🇯🇵 on April 21, 1989, in 🇺🇸 on July 31, 1989 & in 🇪🇺 on September 28, 1990.
#History
🚀 @PerspectiveIX