Thought Starters

The following is a collection of articles and thought pieces highlighting interesting trends and changes in the world we live in.

Mobile messaging continues to grow as a communication format and as a platform which The Economist profiles in its latest issue. Mobile messaging sector has been given a boost  in the tech press by recent announcements at Facebook’s F8 Developer Conference which  has seen Facebook Messenger repositioned as the hub  for consumer’s smartphones. It’s an interesting strategic play by Facebook as it could potentially see the messaging platform become a gatekeeper across mobile regardless of which mobile operating system consumers are using.  I recommend checking out Benedict Evans and  Charlie Warzei’s take on things if you want to find out more.

Jay Z and friends have launched the Tidal streaming music service into what is an increasingly crowded market. Ben Thompson uses this as a starting point to look at how has the bargaining power in the music industry value chain…and he concludes that Tidal doesn’t have a particularly strong position.

Amazon Dash Button provides an interesting example of the changing face of marketing and Amazon’s move to bind consumers more closely to its ecommerce ecosystem. Eugene Wei has an interesting review of the service or for a more critical perspective, try Ian Crouch. I don’t think I’m ready to have little brand advertisements all around my home quite yet.

The popularity of UKIP and other parties hostile to immigration across Europe point to concerns about ‘job stealing foreigners.’ Adam Davidson provides a valuable retort to this view drawing on the Lump of Labour Fallacy.

The drop in global oil prices has helped and hurt different countries. Moisés Naím picks out who the winners and losers are.

Fareed Zakaria advocates the benefits of a liberal arts education pointing to the benefits it provides in enabling countries to be economically successfully and warns of the risks of putting too much emphasis on STEM  focused education.

There’s been a fair amount of talk recently of the impact that technology and automation is having on employment in the developed world. Noah Smith suggests that this argument is overstated pointing to the massive impact that China’s workforce is having on the global economy.

It’s worth checking out  Evan Osnos’ detailed profile of Chinese President Xi Jinping and his view of development which doesn’t include Western ideals of democracy and press freedom. One to watch given his role in shaping international relations in years to come.

Scott Harrison’s profile of  the Moscow apartment bombings of 1999 and Vladimir Putin’s alleged involvement paints the Russian leader in a much less flattering and ultimately rather scarey light.  Well worth a read, particularly in light of Russia’s involvement in Ukraine.

Who are the happiest people in Europe? The social democratic model appears to be working in Scandinavia whilst the economic crisis in Southern Europe appears to be dampening things according to Eurostat figures.

Qualityoflife

For those of you in the UK, you might want to check out Cambridge University research reported on in the Guardian which looks at which parts of the UK are the friendliest and most neurotic.

Featured image is a John-Thomas Nagel photo taken in Sao Paulo in Brazil published in Street Art Utopia.

 

 

THOUGHT STARTERS: CONTENT THAT HAS GOT ME THINKING 13

There’s been a fair amount of coverage over the last week looking at the mobile web/mobile app divide.  Matt Gemmell provides four different classifications of mobile apps running from web apps (explicitly running in a general-purpose browser) through to fully native classifications (without an HTML/CSS user interface). He goes on to look at the pros and cons of the different options.

What really kicked things off though was Flurry’s release of statistics which point to mobile apps taking a greater share of the time Americans spend on their mobile phones.

Apps Continue to Dominate the Mobile Web

Microsoft has released an infographic which give you an idea of the mobile browser and app split as well as giving an indication of which of the major Western countries are heavier users of their smartphones.

Time Spent Using Phones Online Per Month

Chris Dixon has used Flurry’s figures to raise concerns about the trend as signalling a move away from a more open web, with Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store acting as potential gatekeepers.

Steve Schlafman looks at the ‘Uberification of the US service economy’ as startups deliver app based business models that bring together discovery, order, payment, fulfillment and confirmation in a closed loop.

On-Demand Mobile Services

Benedict Evans looks at the rapidly evolving mobile environment, pointing to the issues of discovery and identity as areas that we are still looking for solutions to evolve and/or mature.

A less mobile centric picture of the online landscape in the UK is provided by the following infographic, again from Microsoft.

Where the UK Spends Its Time OnlineBoth Forrester and We Are Social are giving a plug for the sometimes neglected Google+ as part of brand’s social strategy.  Engagement levels are good, even if the user population is dwarfed by that of Facebook.

Mobile will drive growth in media usage worldwide, with television and PC based internet access showing respectable increases, with print advertising being the major loser according to ZenithOptimedia’s forecast for global media quoted in Econsultancy.

Contribution to global growth in adspend by medium 20132016

The release of the Amazon Dash is a great example of Amazon’s continuing quest to reduce consumers’ barriers to purchase.

The world is seeing increases in inequality in income and wealth with Occupy Wall Street’s drawing attention to the top 1%. Priceonomics looks more closely at the figures and finds that it’s the top .01% that are really taking the cake.

Top wealth shares decomposing the top 1%The featured image is by eko