🦅 [ perspective ix ]

​​📰#iXDailyBrief is back! STAT ⚡️ VR-related Google search volumes were 44% lower in December 2017 than they were in December 2016. In contrast, interest in AR appears to be on the up as AR users in the US will reach 51.2 million this year - up 36% on 2017. (Source: Econsultancy) INSIGHT 👨‍🏫 The Expensive Education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley: prs.pctvix.co/2LVCGnW OTHER NEWS 🌎#GoogleMaps now depicts the Earth as a globe: https://t.me/iXNews/30868 🤷‍♂️ iPhone supplier TSMC shut down factories after virus attack: t.me/iXNews/30855 📺 All the key news on Apple’s upcoming streaming TV platform: t.me/iXNews/30853 📈 Boston-Area Startups Are On Pace To Overtake NYC Venture Totals: prs.pctvix.co/2OixAiv EXTRA: Alex Jones & InfoWars 🍏 Apple removes Alex Jones podcasts from iTunes for hate speech: t.me/iXNews/30881 ❌ Facebook removes Alex Jones pages, citing repeated hate speech violations: t.me/iXNews/30879 — We're so excited to be back with iX Daily Brief after a summer break. Have a great week ahead! Ben, @iXNews Are you happy to have daily briefs back?

​​🗣Top Genres of Podcasts Among Avid Fans More than 61% of American households have a fan of #podcasts in the music genre. - 37 million of these households identify as avid fans; - 24 million consider themselves casual fans. 🚀@PerspectiveIX ❓ Do you listen to podcasts?

📰 Today's #BigThought by Martin Bryant: https://prs.pctvix.co/2LPiR1E 🚀@PerspectiveIX

​​🍎Apple's Road to $1 Trillion Despite the news that #Apple lost its second place in the smartphone market to #Huawei in the past quarter, the #iPhone maker is closer than ever to becoming the first trillion dollar company. Following the release of better-than-expected results on Tuesday, the company’s share price climbed almost 6 percent on Wednesday, bringing its market capitalization to $990 billion. As our chart illustrates, Apple reaching a market cap of $1 trillion would have been unthinkable a decade ago. Back in 2008, the company had just released the iPhone, the iPad was still confined to its secretive labs and the financial crisis had brought Apple’s market value down to $76 billion. 10 years and 1.4 billion sold iPhones later, the company founded in a garage in Los Altos, California in 1976 could make history once again. 🚀@PerspectiveIX Do you own any Apple product?

📰 Today's #BigThought by Martin Bryant: https://prs.pctvix.co/2Azz063 🚀@PerspectiveIX

📰 Today's #BigThought by Martin Bryant: https://prs.pctvix.co/2OAHJYr 🚀@PerspectiveIX

👾Game Boy's Birthday Game Boy was first released on the 100th anniversary of #Nintendo in 🇯🇵 on April 21, 1989, in 🇺🇸 on July 31, 1989 & in 🇪🇺 on September 28, 1990. #History 🚀@PerspectiveIX

​​🔥A hot take on hot takes Over the weekend I read an article about the effect on our brains of making everything on Twitter a lightning-fast joke. Instead of taking time to understand something, we race to react and then move on. This ‘quick judgment’ and move on attitude is everywhere now. When evidence of underpowered MacBook Pros emerged recently, people raced to give their hot take on what they believed was happening, without waiting for Apple’s explanation. Apple fixed the problem days later via a software update, but only after people had rushed to accuse them of deliberately under-powering Macs, or having abandoned the pro market entirely via a mistake that supposedly showed they didn’t care. Meanwhile, images purporting to show the Google Pixel 3XL smartphone appeared yesterday. Judging by the reaction from some quarters, the fact it had a large notch was enough to doom it entirely. Never mind we haven’t seen how Google might be using that notch or what it might do with the screen space either side… These are largely inconsequential examples maybe, but I’d argue they apply to how many people process big stories like Brexit, too. 'There was a referendum, let’s just get on with it,’ they say, while failing to engage with anything that indicates that maybe things won’t be too rosy after the UK leaves the EU. There’s just too much news these days for people to take it all in. Being constantly bombarded with new information forces us to process it only lightly, applying and sharing a quick opinion based on our prejudices and past experiences. After all, there’ll be another news story to think about in a minute. And if we don’t think about what’s happening around us in depth, then it’s easy to miss truly important trends happening just below the surface. And it’s frightening to think who might take advantage of that… and who already has. Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2uYzzRJ Martin Bryant, 🚀@PerspectiveIX

​​🎧 Spotify and the future of… news? I was impressed this morning when I went to Twitter’s search tab in its mobile app and scrolled through the recommended tweets. If you’ve never done this, it’s a great way of finding things you’ll probably be interested in that don’t make it into your main feed. Today, Twitter recommended a bunch of tweets about some new Aphex Twin activity in London. Twitter knows I follow Aphex Twin, and knew there was a flurry of tweets about him from outside my network, so it showed them to me. And I was very glad it did. Algorithms are getting better than ever at giving us what we’ll definitely like. Critics of this approach rightly point out that it isn’t always positive, as people aren’t exposed to new and different viewpoints. But maybe there’s hope on that front if we look at Spotify. When it comes to music, I’ve pretty much entirely deferred my discovery of new artists and songs to Spotify. Its Discover Weekly and Release Radar playlists have introduced me to more new music than any radio station or the music press over the past few years. The music it recommends doesn’t always sound like things I already like. I’ve had my listening expanded to weird, experimental hip-hop; krautrock from the 70s I’d never have listened to without a nudge; Indian music that’s somewhere between electronica and a mantra, and also some of what have turned out to be my favourite artists of the past few years. Good quality recommendation tech is now learning how to expand your world view, a little at a time, and Spotify is leading the way. Maybe there’s something news apps can learn from its approach, to help make us better informed by nudging our filter bubbles ever larger. Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2vhDqIZ Martin Bryant, 🚀@PerspectiveIX

​​⛓Don’t mention the blockchain A tweet by TNW’s Matthew Hughes yesterday highlighted to me just how sick tech journalists have become of receiving blockchain-related pitches. Seriously, they get loads. Every day. And when they get a load of trashy pitches about things ‘on the blockchain,’ they become averse to any and all pitches that mention that word - even the good ones. On the entrepreneur’s side, Startup Weekend founder Andrew Hyde tweeted last week about how he couldn’t get any journalists interested in a genuinely worthwhile blockchain-based project. The reason? See above. My solution is simple – don’t mention blockchain when you pitch a journalist. You wouldn’t mention the cloud storage provider you use (hopefully!), so why mention anything else about your backend technology? Instead, focus on the core value proposition to your users. No-one except a few geeks is going to use your product just because it’s based on a blockchain. So why should they really use it? What’s the benefit that makes it better than the competition? That’s your in. The sooner technologists stop using the word ‘blockchain’ to attract journalists and end users, the better. Your technology is a means to an end – not a differentiator in and of itself. Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2mOdXTD Martin Bryant, 🚀@PerspectiveIX

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​​🛰 Facebook settles into orbit Facebook’s epic stock price drop on news of slowing growth showed how fickle markets can be, and how they can work against the broader best interests of a company. Companies can’t have rocket-powered growth forever. At some point, the fuel runs out, or the rocket goes as high as it possibly can. The question is, which is it with Facebook? The company is currently wrestling with problems no company has ever had before. With 2.5 billion people having used at least one of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger in June, it has unparalleled scale and reach. But the problems it faces don’t have the engineering-based solutions it’s used to. Data mishandling, misinformation, interference by nation states, users having had enough of social media… these are largely human problems that the company has to solve through empathy, negotiation and listening. And as we’ve seen in recent weeks, Facebook has an almighty difficulty solving problems that need high emotional intelligence to figure out. In fact, given all that’s happened recently, it’s a wonder that daily active users grew at all. It feels like this is a turning point. Facebook accelerated up into space, and now with slowing growth, it’s settling into orbit. I can’t see Mark Zuckerberg’s mission of connecting the world changing any time soon, and given his grip on the company, shareholders would struggle to remove him even if they wanted to. If he wants to break out of a settled orbit and achieve even more, he’s is going to have to decide what is next for Facebook. What will fuel even more growth to connect the world and keep shareholders happy? It may turn out to be something totally different from what it’s doing now. Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2NOcZCn Martin Bryant, 🚀@PerspectiveIX