24th Jan 2015
1) Great Fun(?) at Rupert Murdoch’s News UK this week, as The Times reported that The Sun was dropping topless models on Page 3 and then for The Sun to do no such thing. Looks like it was a deliberate stunt after all.
In any event, this wonderful Yes Prime Minister sketch (video) seems to explain the Page 3 rumpus perfectly.
2) The fab people at Street Wisdom (a friend of the Filter) have released a new 60″ promo video – take a look here.
For those unaware of Street Wisdom, this is what it is all about – ‘It’s a place we usually hurry though on our way from here to there, dodging other pedestrians and those charity collectors, screening out the noise, lost in thought and grabbing food on the go. Street Wisdom sees it differently. The street is an amazing place to learn – an invisible university – if you know how to look.’
3) Nicholas Carr on The Hierarchy of Innovation (great chart here). An interesting perspective on the debate around whether the human race is becoming less innovative. He doesn’t think so –
“Let me float an alternative explanation: There has been no decline in innovation; there has just been a shift in its focus. We’re as creative as ever, but we’ve funneled our creativity into areas that produce smaller-scale, less far-reaching, less visible breakthroughs”.
and this is worth pondering…..
“If you could choose only one of the following two inventions, indoor plumbing or the Internet, which would you choose?” -Robert J. Gordon
4) The very smart @corydoctorow points out why David Cameron’s digital security initiative is bad news for web users and very bad news for the IT industry.
‘For David Cameron’s proposal to work, he will need to stop Britons from installing software that comes from software creators who are out of his jurisdiction. The very best in secure communications are already free/open source projects, maintained by thousands of independent programmers around the world’.
..and whilst we are on the same subject, the big news at Davos (apart from Prince Andrew) is…..Security Cyber attacks worry Davos elites.
5) Because they don’t like Amazon? Why Publishers are lining up behind ‘Netflix for Books’ services.
And here – my recent related piece on Amazon’s win at The Golden Globes and the proposed link up with Woody Allen The Content River.
6) Expletive Alert !!! – Ripe language here, but very entertaining. From Mark Manson The Subtle Art of not giving a Fu….
7) So …. The Superbowl is coming up and once the New England Patriots have surmounted the ‘deflategate’ controversy, they will take on the Seattle Seahawks. As I normally do, I will look at the ads that are running in the Superbowl, as this always provides an interesting barometer for the state of advertising and more broadly – American culture. In the meantime, here is The History Of The American Economy, Told Through Super Bowl Ads.
8) Lots of talk this week about the global division of wealth and that 80 people are as rich as the rest of us combined. Well here they are.
9) Different views on a young person’s consumption of Social Media, from a young person and from an old fogey.
10) A good reason to get off it ? – Facebook now crops up in a third of divorce cases.