Making Sense:
By the looks of it, the very definition of work is ripe for change -- along with still stale hiring practices.
- The Fakers. Vice: “We keep it, and we can assign it to other members,” he said. “Once they finish using our services and land our job, then we have an awesome website we can use, so it trickles down.”Of course, Schmidt says there are some limits to the kinds of references he’s willing to give, no matter the price.
- Antiwork – a radical shift in how we view “jobs.” Contributoria: Work’s assumed virtue has always been about more than its utility or market value. George Lakoff, the cognitive linguist, provided a clue in the frame of “work as obedience”. [...] Leisure, like happiness, tends to be seen as something that’s earned through work. The underlying idea is that you’re endlessly undeserving – that reward, i.e. happiness, will always be contingent on the endurance of some unpleasant activity (e.g., “hard work”). [...] Laid on top of this work/leisure neurosis is consumerism – the idea that spending money will make you happy.
Making Do:
It has been my favorite social network, we have discussed the business applications here for many years. Do we finally have the hints of a roadmap to sustainability?
- Twitter Reaches Deal to Show Tweets in Google Search Results. Bloomberg: The agreement underscores the progress that Twitter Chief Executive Officer Dick Costolo is making in getting tweets seen by more non-users and generating more advertising revenue from a larger audience. Twitter, which also provides data to Microsoft Corp.’s Bing search service and Yahoo! Inc., is aiming to draw more people to its site as user growth slows.
- Another Twitter Update! This One’s a New Homepage, Designed to Lure New Users. Re/Code: Twitter’s existing homepage that new users see is almost a dead end. There’s nothing to do there except look at a single photo, plucked from one of the company’s 284 million users. But the new version, which the company has already started testing, provides visitors with a glimpse of what they could see if they did have an account.
Making It:
If I were a betting person, I would bet on people. As unpredictable as we can be, we still rock making things and experiences worth having by virtue of humans being part of the process.
- Netflix's Secret Special Algorithm is a Human. The New Yorker: Perhaps what we are seeing here is better explained by the rise of a different kind of talent. It is a form of curation (at which Sarandos excels) whose aim is guessing not simply what will attract viewers but what will attract fans—people who will get excited enough to spread the word. Data may help, but what may matter more is a sense of what appeals to the hearts of obsessive people, and who can deliver that.
- Building Marketplaces. Fabrice Grinda: what it takes to build successful vertical marketplaces, marketplace design, how to growth hack liquidity and manage your suppliers.
What are you reading?
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