Hey there internet friends.
So in corporate comms training, the very first thing they tell brands and companies to do is shut down your scheduled social media posts when there’s a tragedy.
There were tragedies this week, a whole bunch, and you know what? They’re out of the scope of this newsletter. I could give you a whole righteous SHIT IS FUCKED UP IN THE USA screed but it wouldn’t change a whole damn thing. All you need to do is turn on the news or Twitter or Facebook or whatever your preferred ingestion-of-dystopian-content medium is, and you’ll get plenty of it.
TLDR: I don’t know what to say and posting a bunch of links to places to donate money would be a load of performative crap. We live in a country with easy access to a whole ton of weapons that are overkill for going hunting or protecting a home and where there’s no meaningful mental health infrastructure for a whole lot of people who deeply need it.
Dumpster Fire GIF by MOODMAN Rant over. Now on to the links.
“ In earlier times, a lot of land transactions were motivated by “they’re going to take it from us anyway, sooner or later.” Did Napoleon really think he could hold on to all that land? No. He wisely got out, though sadly subsequent French governments did not do “buy and hold.” Not to mention the Florida Purchase Treaty and Guadalupe Hidalgo. At least until lately, wars of conquest have been in decline and that has meant a corresponding decline in country-to-country land transactions as well. “
“ Gen Z’s blockchain-based summer of love is over and now there are Web3 Altamonts everywhere you look. The question though is why? If crypto is magic internet money and everyone wants it to go up, why can’t it just… go up? This week, a statistic about Bitcoin that’s been kicking around for a while went viral on Twitter thanks to the labor rights-focused media organization More Perfect Union: “.01% of bitcoin holders hold 27% of all Bitcoin.” The figure comes from a 2021 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which was reported on by Bloomberg . ”
“ Three years ago, Lady Gaga launched a cosmetics brand Haus Laboratories to be sold exclusively through Amazon. However, the brand flopped and is set to relaunch at Sephora. The relaunched brand will no longer be available on Amazon. ”
“ Marriott's move to let advertisers reach its guests with Yahoo's help is really interesting. The hotel brand has a few great channels for brands to efficiently target travelers via its app and, eventually, its guestroom TVs .”
“ Is Amazon Prime worth it for you? Take this interactive quiz to find out if you’re getting the most out of your $139-a-year membership. ”
“ Compare the lawyer with, say, a dairy farmer. The dairy farmer works long and gruelling hours, and, typically, for far less money than the lawyer. But a large difference between the two jobs is that time isn’t fungible in the same way. The cows need to be milked when they need to be milked. And having milked them before breakfast, there is no temptation to milk them again after breakfast. These long, non-negotiable hours can’t be easy and, just as a lawyer may be disturbed by a late-night call from a client, a dairy farmer may have to rise after midnight to help a cow in labour. But I don’t think I’m over-romanticising to suggest that just as there is something psychologically corrosive about the fact that the lawyer can always bill another six minutes, there is something psychologically healthy about the fact that the farmer can sometimes rest assured that there is nothing useful to be done until the morning .”
Amber Heard, Johnny Depp fandom and reviewbombing .
“ When a “Top Gun: Maverick” trailer premiered in 2019, eagle-eyed viewers noticed that those flags had been replaced instead with unidentified patches that merely resemble the Taiwanese and Japanese flags. The change came per a suggestion made by a Tencent financier on the film, according to a person familiar with the matter. The financier was concerned Chinese censors would be less likely to approve the movie for release with the flags, the person said. Chinese officials have challenged Taiwan’s sovereignty, and the country has had lingering tensions with Japan for decades .”
“ Adi Azran, 27, a content producer at Flighthouse Media, a studio that makes TikTok videos, felt like he’d reached a creative epiphany last June when he showed his colleague Brandon Chase, 25, a video by @ourfilipinograndma, in which said grandma delivered a pickup line to the tune of 12.3 million views. “I was like, ‘Dude — old people ,’” Mr. Azran said. “And he saw the vision. ”
“ The lines between publishers, like The Washington Post, and platforms like Twitter where their stories might appear are becoming increasingly blurred — making it harder to be sure exactly who the public is blaming when they don't like the content .”
“ How Vogue’s Met Gala Coverage Generated 100,000 Newsletter Sign-Ups .”
“ Halsey Says Label Won’t Release New Song Without Viral TikTok: “They Are Doing This To Basically Every Artist. ”
“ In its early days, Substack primarily catered to a certain set of internet-savvy writers and journalists, lured by the promise of monetizing a direct relationship with their readers. But as it morphs from a niche publishing concern into a heavyweight start-up mentioned in the same breath as Twitter and Facebook, its user base is proliferating accordingly .”
“ Condé Nast, publisher of glossy titles like Vogue, Wired, The New Yorker, and GQ, is “no longer a magazine company,” its CEO Roger Lynch said .”
“ Journalists at the Hill, the Washington-based political news publisher owned by Nexstar Media Group Inc., are petitioning to unionize their newsroom, joining a wave of recent organizing efforts .”
“ Conan O’Brien’s Podcast Company Sells to SiriusXM in Deal Valued Around $150 Million .”
Instagram unveils new font and brand identity .
“ Twitter has announced that it’s rolling out Super Follows-only Spaces. Creators who offer Super Follows subscriptions can now host Spaces exclusively for their subscribers. The social media giant says this new option will give creators a way to “offer an extra layer of conversation to their biggest supporters. ”
Walmart betting big on drones for rural delivery .
“ Language tied us together across borders. It gave us benefits no one else had. It was like a secret passage into a larger world of smart people,” said Mr. Doronichev, 39, who was born, raised and educated in Moscow before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area. “But the war broke so many of those ties.” Mr. Doronichev and his housemates are among the hundreds of Russian-speaking technologists working in the Bay Area who are struggling to rebuild their personal and professional lives after the invasion of Ukraine. Some are from Ukraine. Others are from Belarus or Kazakhstan. Still more are from Russia .”
“ Teeny tiny tracking devices are going into Parmigiano-Reggiano rinds in an effort to cut down on cheese fraud. Yum, pairs nicely with microplastics! ”
Big, huge B2B tech news: Broadcom in talks to buy VMWare for ~$60 billion. Yes, billion .
“ A series of product safety cases that have been brought against Amazon over the past few years makes clear that its rewiring of retail poses risks to customers as well. Above all, the cases highlight a significant gap between how most people understand the world’s largest e-commerce company and what that company actually does. ”
Facebook/Meta global affairs prez/ex-UK pol Nick Clegg posted a long Medium post about Meta’s vision for the metaverse - lots of tea leaves to read here .
“ I will strive to be a man of integrity, courage and discipline. I will strive, that is, to be everything that Homer Simpson is not. ”
Amazing public domain scientific textbook images .
Speaking in code, Florida valedictorian edition .
Tim Ferris interviews Yuval Noah Harari ( Sapiens ) .
That’s it for this one. Have a lovely weekend and see you this week.
