So Twitter's new strategy of fiddling around with things to show investors that they can make UI changes continues with an experiment in breaking the chronological order of the stream. I assume the plan is to crush all user resistance to this and then stuff people's feeds with more irrelevant ads, thus delivering the Facebook experience that Wall Street allegedly wants. Call me naive but I thought a lot of competition and positioning theory was centred around differentiation …
Following up on yesterday's Spotify Year In Music shenanigans, the A.V. Club has released its list of the least essential albums of the year. Pointless music at its finest, a truly horrendous collection. There's probably not much need to be concerned though, as the future of music has arrived, mostly unheralded. Jukedeck.com generates production music for videos on the fly. Pick a genre, select a mood and choose a duration and it generates the music for you. It even has a festive 'Make It Christmassy' button for added hellishness, though all this seems to do is smear jingle bells and Christmas song samples on top of whatever it had already generated.
Meanwhile the European Commission is still trying to break the Internet at the behest of wounded publishers. This is possibly the dimmest of all dim ideas, but the dogged determination with which it has been pursued over the last number of years is quite a sight to see.
Sportsing Corner
"National Women's Soccer League players earn an estimated 98.6 percent less than players in Major League Soccer, its male equivalent." And despite being World Champions the US national women's soccer team are still treated atrociously, because feeble wimminz just don't do sportsing right or something.
Worth Pondering
Eye Candy
Information Is Beautiful, 2015 Awards Winners
Totally Confused
Aussie bitcoin, TITSUP, abandoned jumbos, Steorn's return and Octopus Raft latest.
Yours etc., @loughlin
Think you know someone who might like to receive more emails like this? Then forward this one on to them so they can read the words below.
Hey! Want to be part of something hip and retro like a mailing list? Of course you do? Then head on over here to subscribe. I promise not to spam you or sell your email address to Facebook. Or Google. Or Twitter. Or anyone else at all.
Follow @WantYouToKnowHQ on Twitter for more bits and bobs.