Green labels + more news

2 minutes estimated reading time

Green labels

There are more than 450 meanings behind “green” labels – Eco-conscious shoppers have probably noticed hordes of new “green-approved,” “100% natural” eco-friendly goods—claiming to be “certified” by some organization or other—popping up on store shelves. Green labels have many problems. One of them is that environmentalists can’t agree on what’s green so green labels are challenged. Let’s take take hybrids versus old cars on carbon footprint – since most carbon release is in manufacture, yet the hybrid cars would sell on green labels. Or electric cars overall, we don’t understand the energy requirement to recycle them yet they will get green labels. Ands thats before you look at how electricity is generated where they are being sold. Chinese electric cars may get green labels, but the majority of China’s electricity generation comes from coal-fired power stations.

Business

I, Cringely Amazon’s cloud monopoly – I, Cringely – Bob Cringely provides some interesting insights into the market position of Amazon regarding cloud services. It also highlights the challenges that Alibaba, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP in addressing Amazon’s cloud monopoly

Yahoo, NHL Ban Employees from Paid Fantasy-Sports Sites | WSJ – ethics (paywall)

Consumer behaviour

68% of Chinese men are smokers—and millions will die because of it | Quartz – most of the cigarette brands are owned by state owned firms and China has a surplus of males to females. More China related posts here.

Innovation

Weekend edition—The lure of Mars, citizen Schmidt, lobster mysteries  – Hot on the heels of the release of the action movie The Martian—and the discovery that the red planet still has liquid water—NASA has unveiled a bold three-stage plan for getting humans to Mars – interesting lessons in messaging and storytelling from this

Marketing

adam&eveDDB, Temptations Dress Up Cats for the Holidays – Ad Week – blatant link bait

Has Essena O’Neill signalled the end of influencer marketing? | Econsultancy – probably not, influencer marketing is too much ‘on trend’ but it does beg the question are the fees worth it?

Online

WeChat reading rates are dropping. How much, and why? – In mid-2015, the number of views of WeChat subscription accounts started to decline. Some popular accounts saw a decline of more than 50% in readership. More on WeChat here.

product insights from wechat — Medium – interesting WeChat insights

Technology

Will You Ever Be Able to Upload Your Brain? – NYTimes.com – so your cryogenics is probably wasted

Web of no web

Watch How to Eat a Virtual Cookie | MUNCHIES – how is a virtual cookie possible? By altering the taste of food with different visual cues using virtual reality techniques – literally creating a virtual cookie.

Wireless

iPhone Vs Samsung: Apple is still the marketshare leader | BGR – Apple still commands more than 90% of all the profits in the smartphone market