Fapiao + more news

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Fapiao

China’s New Weapon Against Tax Cheats | The Diplomat – the fapiao would be ideal for many European countries like Italy and Greece that suffer from massive under-taxation. A fapiao is a legal receipt that serves as proof of purchase for goods and services, you’ll get them when you shop or eat out in a restaurant. China’s tax authorities require businesses to use fapiao to compel companies to pay tax in advance on their future sales. So the fapiao invoice system serves as a paper warranty against tax evasion, unlike other countries where invoices serve as a tax receipt. There are two different types of fapiao that cover ‘normal’ and ‘special’ sales tax. When I was in China restaurants would offer you a discount if you didn’t ask for the fapiao. The government gave a free ticket with the fapiao that you would win cash prizes with, so citizens were incentivised to ask for it.

Consumer behaviour

Why Behavior Change Apps Fail To Change Behavior | TechCrunch

The Believer – Wanted: Macho Men with Mustaches – interesting cultural study

What cool means to China’s youth | Marketing-Interactive.com

Economics

Bernanke says Fed may taper QE in 2013 but monetary policy is not on a preset course

China to Promote Technology, Energy-Saving in Restructuring Push – Bloomberg – similar to what the west did by globalisation

China Govt Advisor Says Economy In Crisis As Debt Costs Spiral | MNIArguments about whether China will grow at 7% or 7.5% are “pointless” because the economy is already in a financial crisis which may only worsen if the government doesn’t address the country’s crippling debt problem

Analysis: As China’s economic pain increases, so does reform effort | Reuters

Finance

Hedge Funds Are for Suckers – Businessweek – not quite. But the their time in the sun is over (at least for the time being). GLC; one of the UK’s oldest hedge funds shuttered its doors last year

FMCG

Japanese Fans Mourn Demise of ‘Potato Snack’ – WSJ.com – great demonstration of brand loyalty

Colgate forced to scrap #brushswap promotion after Waterloo debacle – Brand Republic News

How to

How to Set Up New Facebook Reports – Search Engine Watch (#SEW)

Ideas

Social Connectivity in America: University of Toronto – don’t worry the web doesn’t isolate us

Do Things that Don’t Scale – do them as they have valuable lessons for design etc

Innovation

Sign Of The Times? Investments in Asia Increase, Investments In Silicon Valley Decrease – is this really surprising when engineering has been outsourced by visas and offshoring and hard innovation doesn’t happen in Silicon Valley any more to the same extend that it used to

Marketing

Confessions of an e-commerce director, | Marketing-Interactive.com

Marketing, Confidence tumbles on economic slowdown | Marketing-Interactive.com

Media

Quantifying the Invisible Audience in Social Networks – Stanford University and Facebook Data Science

Re-imagining Segmentation In Analytics To Help You Make Better Decisions, Faster – Analytics Blog

After Acquisitions Aplenty, Yahoo Q2 Beats With EPS At 35 Cents, But Revenue Flat Again At $1.07B | TechCrunch

BBC News – Apple conspired to fix e-book prices, judge rules

Facebook Has Banned Ad Price ‘Arbitrage’ – Business Insider

Online

Microsoft now has one million servers – less than Google, but more than Amazon, says Ballmer | ExtremeTech

The Companion Web: The Internet And How We Use It Is Evolving

Family albums fade as the young put only themselves in picture – Telegraph – phenomena of selfies

Which? finds trust in comparison sites low – July – 2013 – Which? News – not terribly surprised by this

AltaVista is dead. Here’s why it’s so hard to compete with Google. – interesting interview with the DuckDuckGo people

Retailing

Presence in Digital Space | IGI Global – great whitepaper on digtial marketing particularly as it pertains to brand and e-tailing

Search Trumps Social Media: Department Stores Edition | L2’s The Daily – no real surprise, social delivers just 1.9 per cent of traffic

Software

Nokia’s struggles suggest consumers are ‘content’ with iOS and Android duopoly – consumers might be, but carriers are also influencers in this process

The History of App Pricing, And Why Most Apps Are Free – downward spiral

Chrome for iOS adds improved Google apps integration, ‘experimental’ data compression | The Verge

6,000 mobile developers: Android most popular, iOS most profitable, Windows Phone most ‘next’ | VentureBeat

Apple’s ‘Zombie Apps’ Cloud App Store’s Birthday – Survey shows nearly two thirds of the 888,856 apps available in Apple’s App Store receive little or no downloads:

iOS 7 Implications for Marketers:

Elop explains: why Nokia didn’t choose Android to replace Symbian | guardian.co.uk

Leaked Line Document Sheds Light on One of Its Monetization Models – for Naver LINE

Why mobile web apps are slow | Sealed Abstract

Style

Empire Ave | A chat with Shawn Stussy – Pt I

Technology

Microsoft Windows 8 tablet criticism: too flawed to recommend | BGR

Can Jack Ma’s Cainiao project deliver on its promise? | South China Morning Post – interesting that Cainiao is providing a technology layer to increase efficiencies and integration of logistics companies with e-commerce

Microsoft: Kinect costs almost as Xbox One to make | BGR – the inevitable teardowns once it’s launched will be interesting

PC Shipments Fall for a Fifth Quarter Even as U.S. Decline Slows – Bloomberg

If tardy chip-baking fix fails, this Frenchman can help • The Register

Wireless

TelecomTV | News | Just in case you thought Nokia had turned a corner… it hasn’t

Nokia Earnings Analysis Q2 2013: Smartphone ASP plummeting | BGR

Nokia Earnings Preview Q2 2013: The moment of truth | BGR

Nokia: dumping hardware, opening up software – Rethink Wireless

Nokia can’t rely on megapixels alone | TechEyeA large problem facing Nokia is branding. It’s “no longer seen as cool or premium in Europe,” Gleeson says, “and the brand essentially doesn’t exist in North America at all”. So much the same problems that affected the Nokia brand prior to Mr Elop coming on board

Transitioning To a Mobile Centric World | Above the Crowd | By Bill Gurley

Apple Wants to Sell More iPhones Through Its Own Stores — But Can It? – John Paczkowski – Mobile – AllThingsD

“Everybody has got a smartphone” | asymco – no they haven’t