Brand blogs + more news

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Brand blogs

Are Brand Blogs Worth the Effort? | The Daily | L2 – I am surprised at the findings on brand blogs especially in terms of best practices not being adhered to. Blogging is the platform which the marketing profession understands best, because it has been using it the longest, brand blogs are also one of the few platforms that the luxury brand can truly own. I think the research on brand blogs reflects that marketing functions aren’t learning organisation. More related content here.

FMCG

Starbucks is testing out ice cubes made of coffee | Quartz – makes total sense

Media

Rubicon Project’s Barrett: Tackle Transparency Or Ad Tech Could Face Regulation 05/18/2017 – stating the obvious, but interesting that this came out the same time that they are countersuing The Guardian

Spotify’s Loss Widens Despite Big Jump in Revenue — The Information – investor sentiment seems to be more about hope rather than reality

Online

Introducing Similarity Search at Flickr | Yahoo Research – really cool image search

Retailing

Telegram now lets users buy things from chatbots in its messaging app | TechCrunch – very WeChat-esque

Security

How Google reinvented security and eliminated the need for firewalls | Network World – interesting read (reg wall)

Theresa May to create new internet that would be controlled and regulated by government | The Independent – Facebook and Google should just block the UK and see how that goes down, otherwise the precedent it offers internationally is quite worrisome for them

The Threat | Edge.org – interesting perspective on computer security research over time

Software

Huawei Loses Ex-Apple Designer Hired to Revamp Smartphone Software — The Information – usual aspects of challenge: distance from headquarters, Chinese language skills, desire for a big step change are all barriers

What’s Happening with Me – Biz Stone – Medium – Biz Stone heads back to Twitter

“MP3 is dead” missed the real, much better story – Marco.org

China Hit Hard by Hacking Attack as Asia Assesses Damage | New York Times – not terribly surprised by this