Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 41

Mapping Apps Are Getting “Smarter” … That Might Not Be Good News

Waze announced several “improvements” this week including the ability to warn you about emergency vehicles ahead, warnings for sharp turns coming up and alert you about which lane you should be in as you enter a roundabout. In other words, they have launched features to help distract drivers who are paying attention to the road to look at their phones instead.

If you’re feeling the snark from my commentary on this, I admit I’m not impressed by these sorts of additions. Instead, I worry that a pho...

The First (And Maybe Last) Song Ever Released as a Slice of Pizza

If you think sales of music in a physical format like a CD are dead, this new single released as a slice of pizza might change your mind. It is the brainchild of thrash metal band Belushi Speed Ball and here’s a bit more about it:

“Belushi Speed Ball has a cult following for its headbang-inspiring riffs and tongue-in-cheek lyrics, complete with Spongebob Squarepants references and biting commentary on municipal waste systems. Specifically, the band is a part of the “Pizza Thrash” subgenre of thra...

The Cover Design for Our New Book Is Ready! Get a First Look Below …

A big thank you to all the people who shared their opinions on the cover design contest, I’m happy to share the final cover of the book and also the new publication date of September 10th, 2024. We are a few weeks away from sharing the early edition of the book ONLY with our advance readers and book launch team. There’s still time to join if that’s interesting for you … just click the link below!

Join the Non-Obvious Thinking Book Launch Team >>

The Yolk App Shows the Challenges of Relying on User’s Constant Creativity

Yolk is a new app that lets people “communicate through items that you see” and some reviews suggest they might be forging a new method of communication in the process. Just signing up requires you to invite a certain number of friends. There’s no way to send a direct message or use any text. And the app is only available on iPhone. Despite these limitations, Yolk is getting accolades for its ability to “lean into the social weirdness of identity building.” It works by allowing users to create a...

Why Americans Stopped Hanging Out and the Crisis of Social Fitness

A long read last week from The Atlantic offered this viral headline – Why Americans Stopped Hanging Out. Around the same time, I came across a leisure study from a bunch of marketers about how people are spending less time at bars and pubs, even as they spend more time running marathons. All of it seems to point to yet another depressing statistic about why we’re unlikely to emerge from our pandemic of loneliness anytime soon.

The more disturbing element of these stories is that the erosion o...

Ever Wonder Why Certain Flavors Of Chips Are Sold In Some Countries and Not Others? Inside The Secretive World Of Flavor Dust …

If you have ever been to another region of the world and been curious about how they ended up with the various flavors of crisps (chips to Americans) that are on store shelves, you’ll find this article very interesting. It asks and answers everything you’ve wondered about how various flavors get reduced to the flavored dust sprinkled on top of chips.

Read this article to understand the secret food science behind chip flavor development, the rationale behind why “Lasagne” flavored Lays chips a...

Getting Ready For The Dynamic Pricing Future Of All Things

This week Wendy’s unintentionally stirred up some trouble as headlines popped up online that the fast-food chain was testing “surge pricing” similar to Uber where they would charge more for food when demand was highest. The chain quickly backtracked with the relatively bone-headed explanation that they were actually using it to offer “discounts during slower times of day” … which is pretty obviously a sneaky “heads I win, tails you lose” sort of argument.

Still, the story struck a chord becau...

3 Observations from TikTok’s New 2024 Trend Report

The newly released TikTok 2024 Trend Report offers more than a few to-be-expected trends that are essentially meant to promote the platform to advertisers … but some of the insights also offer some useful cultural commentary. Here are a few observations that stood out for me:

Serendipitous Scrolling – TikTok users often discover unexpected new passions that they didn’t expect. The report suggests a marketing opportunity to use breakout creative (not that easy!) to make use of the serendipity...

Leap Day, the Longest Year and Julius Caesar’s Year of Confusion

Today is February 29th – which apparently is a quite popular day to get married. Some couples think it’s quirky or romantic. And let’s be honest, a handful of people might be hoping they only have to celebrate an anniversary once every four years. Not that I identify with this idea at all, of course.

But aside from creative wedding dates or the various online support groups devoted to people born on leap day – today might also make you curious about the history of this correction of the moder...

ADD+SPACE Wants to Become a New Airbnb … for Your Stuff

Imagine you’re living in a cramped apartment with a bunch of extra stuff that you don’t need year-round. You could keep it at your parent’s house – if you’re a young person and they live nearby. Or get a storage locker, which is inconvenient and requires a lot of effort.

Or you could try ADD + SPACE, a new startup (available in NYC only at the moment) which lets you take photos of your items and store them in an orange waterproof box that will get picked up by a courier and taken to a nearby ...