Zegna + more news

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Zegna licenses brand name to eyewear manufacturer to expand category – Zegna had previously made their eyewear products on their own. The Zegna deal is yet another indicator of how eyewear manfacture is becoming a global oligarchy in terms of market dynamics. This oligarchy has implications in terms of market power for luxury brands like Zegna and mid-market brands product licensing power

Business

We want to pass on that business karma’: Innocent smoothie millionaire Richard Reed on his new startup – London Life – Life & Style – London Evening Standard

Goldman Sachs thinks the best mergers create oligopolies – Quartz

Consumer behaviour

Sparrow-Face: A new Selfie Trend emerges — mobileYouth®

Intel’s Sharp-Eyed Social Scientist – NYTimes.com

Data point: TV viewers shopping, messaging, surfing and more on second screens – Americans own on average four digital devices, and two-thirds of households have a smartphone, per Nielsen.

The Red Sneakers Effect: Inferring Status and Competence from Signals of Nonconformity – Article – Harvard Business School

Over 20% of bookings on China’s top flight and hotel site come from mobile | Techinasia

Finance

Airbus buys German bank for inhouse requirements – this is a really interesting move by Airbus. Being able to organise loans for suppliers (in a similar way to Apple uses much of its cash pile) and customers (a la Huawei’s route to dominance in carrier equipment via cheap Chinese state bank loans) could be decisive against Boeing. It also could be implying that capital is going to get expensive in the Eurozone sooner rather than later

Hong Kong

Forty years since its creation, how the ICAC cleaned up corruption in Hong Kong | South China Morning Post – something Europe could learn from, although in Ireland I think even the ICAC would throw its hands up in despair (paywall)

Innovation

So tell me again. Just what is it that makes Silicon valley so innovative? – makes you think about Tech City vision, the big challenge is that the numbers don’t look at quality of innovation – hard innovation versus soft innovation. Over the past two decades Silicon Valley has focused on soft innovation

End of Startup Era: Chips Face Innovation Gap | EE Times – lack of startup funding for hard innovation now coming home to roost in Silicon Valley. People like Judy Estrin have been warning that this would happen since the late 1990s

Luxury

Chinese gamblers love France, so this 92-year-old tycoon is building a Versailles casino | Quartz

Marketing

Marketing to Engineers – how video is redefining marketing – Smart Insights Digital Marketing Advice

Media

WeChat Unveils Details of its Self-serve Advertising System – WeChat began testing a self-service advertising system for subscription accounts last month. According to Guangdiantong (GDT), the self-advertising system for Tencent services that is supporting the WeChat one too, dozens of accounts joined the trial for ten days and the click-through rate is 3.5%.

With Porn Filters Going Oh So Well, UK Roars Ahead In Expanding Them To Include ‘Extremist’ Content | Techdirt – Great Britannic Firewall seeks to filter out unharmonius content learning best practice from China

Blogger Casts Doubt On Credibility Of Facebook Ad Sales – PSFK

What Does This Guy Know About Virality That No One Else Does? — Medium

Online

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Infinite scroll search-friendly recommendations – repagination

Here’s How Google’s New Search Results Will Look Under European Antitrust Settlement | Re/code

Retailing

Why Abercrombie Is Losing Its Shirt – NYMag

Software

Software Saps Samsung’s Might – The Information – Google going Microsoft on Android eco-system

Technology

Broadwell bombshell: Has Intel delayed 14nm deployments until Q4 2014? | ExtremeTech

China Tech Start-Up Scene Turning Heads Globally – SPIEGEL ONLINE – that whole line about China can’t innovate is bullshit. China chooses not to innovate when it can copy is more accurate in many sectors as its about opportunity cost

Qualcomm cancels Snapdragon 802 smart TV chip it announced 5 weeks ago | Ars Technica

Wireless

China’s smartphone sales weaken last quarter | SCMP – maturing mobile market and a reduction in economic growth likely slowing down smartphone adoption and lengthening upgrade cycles (paywall)

Lenovo plots Motorola comeback in China – Rethink Wireless