Black Friday Sale + more things

1 minutes estimated reading time

REI to Close Stores During Black Friday Sale and Encourages Customers to Go Outside | Time – this is a smart more by REI on its Black Friday sale for a number of reasons. It is in keeping things on brand. It focuses purchases to their online channels. It also reels in Patagonia’s differentiator during the Black Friday sale of the Thanksgiving holiday season

Oxford Professor Schools CalPERS: Contrary to Board Presentation, Private Equity is “Most Expensive Asset Class, By Far” – not terribly surprising results. CalPERS seems to be a basket case at the moment

Google Reveals Its New “RankBrain” Artificial Intelligence System – interesting focus on complex queries by Google, presumably because there will be more clues in user context. But where will this leave experienced netizens who use Boolean search terms to refine their searches? Is Google enough of a utility to ignore early adopters, and could early adopters go elsewhere?

IBM Opens the Door for Carbon Film NV Memory | EE Times – This latest work may well have solved the problems that have so far inhibited the development of carbon-based memory and opened the door to the possible use of oxygenated amorphous carbon

SMARTPHONES: Smartphone Price Wars Claim More Suppliers ~ Young’s Business China – consolidation at component level likely to affect smaller phone manufacturers, but will it cause more sensible component pricing? More wireless industry related posts here.

WPP reports 3.3% hike in net sales for Q3 but UK revenue growth slows – WPP attributed to a “softening” in advertising, media investment management (media buying), data investment management (market research and CRM) and healthcare – interesting that this vertical in particular is soft. Healthcare is usually much more resilient as a vertical market.  (paywall)

Advertisers often don’t know what they are buying when talking mobile | Campaign – lack of context, intrusive formats and taking the piss on data connections (paywall)