Search results for: “William Gibson”

Gucci + more news

Gucci

Shenzhen sweatshop allegations force Gucci to act – FT.com – PR nightmare and management FAIL for Gucci. The Gucci story is unusual in that it affects service workers. Luxury in Asia requires a certain servility of service that I find uncomfortable and the Gucci story of long oppressive days for retail staff sounds emblematic of it. That its happening in the Gucci Shenzhen store doesn’t surprise me at all

China

China Favors Direct Investment to Create ‘New Blood’ in Europe – WSJ

Maersk builds LatAm “reefer” factory | FT.com – because the cost of production is growing faster in China than Latin America

Consumer behaviour

What Wealthy Women Really Want – WSJ

For Their Children, Many E-Book Fans Insist on Paper – NYTimes.com – the tactile arguments for toddlers are the same reason why I prefer print books

Culture

Alan Moore – meet the man behind the protest mask | The Observer – it was a nice literary tail for the Guardian to loop back with Alan Moore

Paris Review – The Art of Fiction No. 211, William Gibson – interview with the cyber punk don

Economics

Housing prices fall in Chinese cities – FT.com – property developers and small businesses have been suffering

Brussels warns on risk of UK double-dip – FT.com – UK economy stagnating and government’s deficit reduction strategy isn’t working according to a European Commission report – a deep and prolonged recession complemented by continued market turmoil cannot be excluded

The way (not) to rein in the yen – FT.com – A more aggressive quantitative easing programme, targeting 10-year government bonds instead of shorter maturities, would contribute more decisively to ease the pressure on the exchange rate. More importantly, it would also stimulate the largely stagnant domestic economy (paywall)

The Long Haul to Capitalizing on Web Trends – Digits – WSJ – According to comScore Inc., almost 62% of the ads shown on Facebook in the July through September quarter came from advertisers that are not among the top 1000 digital advertisers in the U.S.; on Yahoo Inc., just 23% come from such small advertisers. These sorts of Facebook advertisers range from nail salons marketing to people who live a particular town, to recruiters targeting employees at a specific company – going down the long tail due to targeting ability, not great on context like Google local search though

Ideas

Information: Be careful what you signal | The Economist

Possibility Is Thrust of 100-Year Starship Study – NYTimes.com – in 10,000 years, the speed of humans has jumped by a factor of about 10,000, from a stroll (2.6 m.p.h.) to the Apollo astronauts’ return from the Moon (26,000 m.p.h.). Reaching the nearest stars in reasonable time — decades, not centuries — would require a velocity jump of another factor of 10,000

Innovation

Marubeni Launches 3D Printing Service — Tech-On! – interesting that it is aimed at making precision resin dies etc

Japan

Japan’s #1 Mascots: Kumamon, Bary-san, and Nishiko-kun | Japan Probe – Japan seems to have mascots for everything, kind of cool actually

Japan Today | Toshiba to close three semiconductor plants

Korea

South Korea’s economy: What do you do when you reach the top? | The Economist – interesting economic profile on Korea

Luxury

Von Furstenberg to Chinese Women: Stop Chasing Men – WSJ

The rise of quiet luxury: Understated chic that is very, very expensive. – Slate Magazine

China’s Menswear Market (Quietly) Booming « Jing Daily

Luxury’s anti-social (media) brigade | FT.com – variable adoption

Brussels finally recognises luxury | FT.com

Luxury Second-Hand Shops Spreading Like Wildfire In China | Jing Daily

The moral of Dior’s numbers | FT.com – Galliano story didn’t affect Dior sales

Media

Secret documents reveal the flimsy case for Ofcom to give into BBC’s public TV DRM demands – Boing Boing

Technology

HP CEO: Apple will become market leader in personal computers | MacNews

Wireless

Nokia’s Microsoft Phones May Not Get Traction, Analyst Says – NYTimes.com – no USP, apart from a bucketload of advertising

December 2, 2011
Instapaper + more news

Instapaper

Instapaper Founder Marco Arment’s Journey From Bagel Jockey to Publishing Pioneer | Fast Company – I learned the value of giving people little delights [while working at the bagel shop]. Those small details and experiences are the reason why people like luxury cars. That uncertain reward is why people play the slots or Candy Crush. Instapaper is a social bookmarking service founded in 2008, that allows web content to be saved so it can be “read later” on a different device, such as an e-reader, smartphone, or tablet.

Economics

The Koch Brothers: Rage Against the Billionaires – WSJ – interesting move in the US

China Manufacturing: “We’re Bringing It Back Home.” : China Law Blog – interesting article on near-sourcing implies that manufacturing isn’t as fluid as the likes of McKinsey thinks it is for a lot of products

The Ease (Or Unease) Of Doing Business In China. A Stagnant China. : China Law Blog : China Law for Business – Vietnam making some radical moves to become more entrepreneur-friendly

Ideas

The Rise of the New Global Elite – The Atlantic – interesting piece. My concern is does that ambivalence pave the way for a backlash?

25 Years of Digital Vandalism – NYTimes.com – great piece by William Gibson

Is Facebook making us sad? Stanford University research and Sherry Turkle’s new book Alone Together suggest that social networking may foster loneliness. – By Libby Copeland – Slate Magazine

Luxury

Chinese, British Focus On High End In “Brand Desire” Survey « Jing Daily : The Business of Luxury and Culture in China – shows how green brands don’t resonate in the UK

Wealthy in Hong Kong, South Korea Most Likely to Buy Flashy Car | WSJ – no surprise to anyone who has seen the Rolls Royce models driving around Central

Prada’s Hong Kong IPO: the consumer implications – FT.com – interesting idea about the luxury market taste maturation cycle in China. It oversimplifies the demographics and tribes behind luxury purchases

Rupert Hoogewerf: “Although China’s New Rich May Be Wealthy Or Powerful, They May Not Have Taste” « Jing Daily : The Business of Luxury and Culture in China – this isn’t a Chinese issue the same could be said of the new rich elsewhere

Media

Lionel Barber: The FT’s Five-Point Plan For Exploiting The Brand | paidContent – interesting stuff

The Explosion of Free Porn Online – New York Magazine – adult entertainment industry being disrupted as business models change

Technology

How Steve Jobs ‘out-Japanned’ Japan – the zen principle of Ma or what Sun Tzu called the void.

February 3, 2011
NFC + more news

NFC

Digital Evangelist: What would I rather pick up my phone or my keys as I leave my house? – Ian on NFC. NFC or near field communications. Like most technologies NFC has been a long time coming. It sprang out of work that was done around RFID (radio frequency identification), where a passive device is powered and communicates with a powered transmitter. Its the tag that’s in library books or items to prevent shoplifting.

Standards for what we now know as NFC were set in a technical outline by Philips and Sony back in 2002. Two years later they established the NFC forum. A year later and Sony launches an NFC shell add-on for its Nokia 5140 ruggedised mobile phone. Nokia, France Telecom and Samsung experiment using NFC to pay for public transport and mobile payments. China Unicom rolls out NFC in public transport across Beijing and Chongqing. This year Nokia launches the first NFC compatible smartphone and Nice experiments with being a contactless city with bankcards and mobile phones.

China

FT.com / China – China launches own online mapping service – its a bit poor, but this is a first iteration. China has concerns about state secrets leaking out

Batman Wins Chinese Lottery – WSJ – absolute genius, love it

Consumer behaviour

For Millennials, Brands May Be as Important as Religion, Ethnicity | Fast Company – wasn’t this the case for generation X and even boomers as well? Brett Easton Ellis built a writing career on documenting the brands of disaffected youth. Yuppies were status brand obsessives. William Gibson and Douglas Coupland fetishise brands or deliberately create a brand void in their works. The move from glasses to bottled beer in European bars and clubs was about the bottle label being a brand totem for the user

Innovation

Three Innovation Trends in Asia – Harvard Business Review – interesting article. What the middle-market segment looks like in different Asian countries is particularly pertinent especially as it gets hollowed out of the developed world

Japan

HISTORY of HEIBON PUNCH 平凡パンチの歴史 – fascinating cover designs. Heibon Punch was a homegrown Japanese men’s magazine a la GQ that finished in the mid 1980s. Love the 1960s jazz record series they put out with Quincy Jones

Legal

U.S. Says Genes Should Not Be Eligible for Patenting – NYTimes.com

Luxury

New luxury trends emerge in China: News from Warc.com – maturing market?

Great new fashion innovations for 2012 | FT.com – interesting ideas that seem to owe a lot to streetwear brands. Experiments in materials by Thakoon, DVF and Proenza Schouler are a chip off the old block from the work that Massimo Osti pioneered at CP Company, Stone Island the collborations with Sugergra and Levi’s. The multi-garment garment is straight from Acronym’s play book

Luxury Gets More Convenient – WSJ – counter-intuitive. Koreans buying Gucci in the 7-Eleven

Online

Google Stop Indexing Blogger (Blogspot) Posts – need to get this sorted sharpish, at least they can’t be accused of being biased!

Retailing

Chinese Online Shoppers Have High Standards – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Software

Microsoft Launches Office 365, Bringing Millions Into the Cloud | Fast Company – it looks like Ray Ozzie’s work was done at Microsoft

Technology

Op-Ed: Optical Media Not Dead Yet – dead in technology circles a relative thing. Sony only stopped selling cassette Walkmans in Japan on Friday

Web of no web

Microsoft Buying Canesta to Bolster Gesture Technology – NYTimes.com – minority report here we come

Wireless

China Mobile: Not in the Comm Biz – WSJ – in the information services business apparently. Some good telecoms numbers here

Project to Test Home & Electric Vehicle Network Standards for CO2 Reduction | NTT DOCOMO Global – really interesting project extending smart home thinking to a smart life

October 22, 2010
Viktor Bout + more news

Viktor Bout

For Arms Sales Suspect, Secrets Are Bargaining Chips – NYTimes.com – continuing story of Viktor Bout. Viktor Bout was a Russian arms dealer. Viktor Bout graduated from the Military Institute of Foreign Languages in the Soviet Union. Viktor Bout first appeared in Angola supporting Soviet proxy the MPLA. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union Viktor Bout set up an air freight business based in Angola. As well as legitimate cargo Viktor Bout built up a reputation breaking UN arms embargoes across sub Saharan Africa, the Middle East and the former Yugoslavia.

Consumer behaviour

Are You Working With Energizers or Rotten Apples? | Fast Company – interesting article on consumer behaviour in the workplace

Culture

The prescient cultural criticism of Max Headroom. – Slate Magazine – I love Max Headroom, though when watching it, I find its funny how dated it feels; particularly the portrayal of TV as a dominant figure in society

William Gibson: I’m agnostic about technology. But I want a robotic penguin | The Observer – I love the phrase agnostic in relation to technology, its often how I feel

Economics

Are Counterfeit Drugs Really 10% of All Drugs? – The Numbers Guy – WSJ – interesting article on the pharmaceuticals industry, worryingly the BMJ gets called out for citing make-believe data

Ideas

SSRN-Convexity, Robustness, and Model Error by Nassim Taleb – interesting whitepaper about economic | financial risk from the guy who wrote that Black Swan book

innovation

Computer Chips Seem Poised to Shrink Again – NYTimes.com

Japan

Tokyo Girls Collection 2010 A/W – JAPAN Style – Japan Style reports on the autumn | winter show of the Tokyo Girls Collection. Over 30,000 women in a stadium where models (just like them) show wares that they can order using their mobile phone in real-time. Those that can’t make it, watch the show online and can order via the website. . A bit of entertainment and show business is thrown in as well. It cirumvents the complex retail distribution channels that are prevalent in Japan. TGC will be run in Beijing next year as well. Here is a post that I wrote in more depth about the TGC phenomenon and two more posts about brand extensions to the TGC formula

Online

Yahoo Revamps Mail Service – WSJ.com – just waiting for when Carol Bartz comes out and says that Yahoo! was never an email company… What has surprised me on this was that Yahoo! has been steadlly been losing share to Google. Yahoo! slew the 1GB mail box size issue years ago with some fancy work which meant consumers got unlimited storage but had to load up through normal use rather than dumping stuff in. The Oddpost derived interface is up to scratch as well. So this seems to be more about the perception of the Yahoo! domain and associated services?

Retailing

Evolving convenience stores | The Japan Times Online – I couldn’t imagine APAC without 7-Eleven and Lawson yet they have only been in Asia for just over 25 years and come to be a key player. Yah! for slush puppies

September 12, 2010
Omake + more news

Omake

Omake trends: Elle Japon x American Apparel – gives away headband with magazines. Omake pronounced ‘O-ma-ke’ means incentive. They have become a monthly magazine giveaway, particularly for fashion publications like Elle Japon. There is also a second series of magazines called eMook. An e-Mook is a brand lookbook for a season. People often bought them for the product give-away, A Bathing Ape popularised this idea outside Japan and their e-Mooks are sought after. People buy e-Mooks for the giveaway item rather than the content. Increasingly that seems to be the case with Omake as well.

China

FT.com / Comment / Analysis – China: Futuristic yet fruitful – interesting overview of the Shanghai expo

Consumer behaviour

Retailers Look to Profit From Last Century’s Styles – NYTimes.com – when you can’t trust the banks, the government, businesses and authority figures what can you trust? The past.

Culture

YouTube – chelskifl’s Channel – the seminal Pump up the Volume documentary which has interviews with the heroes I looked up to as a house DJ. Check out part three for the HotMix5 stuff. The WBMX sets of HotMix5 blew me away and fired me up to want to DJ house music

Design

Innovative Mayor Sam Adams Builds a Cleaner Portland | Fast Company – interesting use of mobile so that the public an report rubbish etc

Nokia’s designs on Apple | FT.com – interview with Marko Ahtisaari. On privacy: “The industrial logic of every single social network is that those terms of service will be renegotiated very quickly.” On interface design “All the touchscreen interfaces are very immersive. You have to put your head down. What Nokia is very good at is designing for mobile use: one-handed, in the pocket. Giving people the ability to have their head up again is critical to how we evolve user interfaces.” No comments on why the N900 and N97 are the worst of both worlds – bring back the Communicator form factor

Ethics

Did Microsoft Hire Consumer Watchdog to Attack Google? | Techrights – really really stupid, surprised Frank X Shaw wouldn’t stomp on this practice if it turns out to be true

Anti-piracy enforcers claiming to represent Microsoft used to shut down dissident media in former USSR – Boing Boing – quick denials in place otherwise this could have been a Yahoo! moment for Microsoft’s corporate reputation

FMCG

FDA Calls Marlboro Out on Creative Marketing of “Light” Cigarettes | Fast Company – I think the FDA is a bit out of whack here, although I can see where they are coming from in terms of trying to flatten the light message, for regular smokers the cigarette will be the same, same length, taste the same.

Japan

Big in Japan: Millions ‘Mumble’ on Twitter – DealBook Blog – NYTimes.com – more unique users than Mixi

Tokyo fishermen update seafood e-commerce site from their boats – Boing Boing – not surprising given that the Japanese invented JIT and lean manufacturing processes that they would extend it when the technology came available to their fishing industry

Wired 9.09: My Own Private Tokyo – William Gibson on Tokyo

Legal

Is it a good idea to kick those Downfall spoofs off YouTube? Perhaps not | Technology | guardian.co.uk – ironically exposes rights owners to legal issues

Media

France, the U.K. Take Steps Against Digital Piracy – WSJ.com

Luxury

Luxury market starts to evolve in China – hyperinflation for luxury lifestyles

Online

Yahoo wants to do what Facebook did, only slower – as the FT said: sounds familiar and unambitious

Retailing

FT.com / Companies / Retail – Gome reappoints ousted Bain directors – its like a tele-novella

Security

UK MPs call for ID cards and surveillance, but demand privacy for themselves – Boing Boing – looks like the Digital Economy Act has brought a whole pile of tech politics out of the bag

June 20, 2010

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