R.J. Wheaton's Blog

Bay Area eCommerce versus New York eCommerce

A provocative short post from Benedict Evans about how the underlying experiences of different cultural/geographical pockets is shaping online retail:

If you grew up in a small town, and went to Stanford, and then got a job in tech in the South Bay, then you could reach your 30s and be running a large company or part of one, and never in your life have walked past a shop selling something wonderful that you never knew existed. Even in San Francisco that would be pretty easy. That is, living he...

Apple, U2, and identity

David Holmes (not that David Holmes) writing for Pando on "Why the outrage over Apple’s U2 stunt is good news for the future of music":

And yet,people still care about having a self-curated library of songs. They still think of it as a reflection of their identity. Otherwise, the feeling of betrayal at having a corporation slot an album into your music libraryagainst your will likely would not have been so palpable.

Portishead's Dummy in "The 10 Best 33 1/3 Books"

I'm delighted and humbled that Stephen Burt, writing in Slate, identified Portishead's Dummy as one of "The 10 Best 33⅓ Books" – "Worth reading even if you don’t care about the music."

The list accompanies a longer piece about his experience reading the entire series: "I Read 93 Books About Pop Albums: Here’s what I learned."

Pinterest: the database of intentions

This was everywhere last week, but in case you missed it, Alexis Madrigal'sAtlanticinterview with Pinterest co-founder Evan Stone is a great read, particularly if you buy into Benedict Evan's notion that we're in the pre-pagerank phase of mobile internet usage.

My contention is that Pinterest is one of the four ways that people find things on the Internet. The default, of course, is Googling (or—fine, Microsoft—Binging). For real-time searches, there is Twitter. For people or entities, there's...

Ignore social media marketing*

* with some exceptions.

A great post from Jason Stoddard about the impact of traditional media coverage, with some very entertaining (and potentially controversial, in many circles) digressions on social media marketing, specifically:

If you’re an entertainment company, social marketing is the greatest thing since sliced cheese. It should absolutely be front and center in your plans. Every entertainment social media program we did produced 10-100x the results of an equivalent investment in conv...

Brand management and technology

Essential piece by Ben Thompson about how technology is changing brands and branding. Hetouches on the implications of lower barriers to entry:

it is significantly easier today to get a startup off the ground; however, that actually means startups needmoreventure capital, not less, because the real challenge is marketing and/or sales (and thus, by extension, venture capital is bifurcating between very large and very small)

and e-commerce:

dominating shelf space was a core part of their strategy,...

Sent from my wireless device.

I've recently found myself typing "Sent from my wireless device" at the end of an email sent from my desktop. It's shorthand for "You know this is just email, right?"

Some people react to perceived tone in email, a medium in which we compose in a hurry, usually while distracted. Emails that are written for the optimal distribution of information can seem terse, almost dismissive; and can provoke emotional reactions that get in the way of actual work.

We all need to remind one another that email...

Let Me Google an Incoming Phone Number

The killer feature I want on my phone is a button that says "who the hell is this?"

#Homeshelf2014

A pretty simple concept (obviously based on #homescreen2014). One Billy shelf* (that's 30 inches of space) – what will you put on it?

Here's the full list, in rough sequence of when-I-read-them, from left to right:

Love in Vain: A Vision of Robert Johnson by Alan GreenbergLight in August by William FaulknerInvisible Man by Ralph EllisonMoby-Dick by Herman MelvilleThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark TwainThe Essential Hemingway (mostly for The Sun Also Rises; but also the vignettes in I...

33 1/3 Call for Proposals

In obviously awesome news, Bloomsbury have posted an open call for proposals for the spectacular33 1/3 series. My own modest contribution to the series finds itself in ever-more intimidating company every time a new volume comes out, and the recent slate of releases has been very, very good.I'll certainly be picking up the forthcoming books on Sigur Ros, Danger Mouse, Michael Jackson, Aphex Twin (by Marc Weidenbaum, whose blogDisquietI've loved for years), and J Dilla's Donuts (by fellow Toro...