Centives

Alexis Madrigal wrote last year that we have the history of the web wrong:

• Most people think that first there was internet. Then a decade or so later there was the rise of social sites such as Facebook or Twitter and we could suddenly share links we found.
• Yet this isn’t really accurate. People have always, and continue to share links through email and instant messages. This is just as social as what we traditionally consider to be social media.
• The reason why this type of social sharing doesn’t get much attention is because it’s impossible to track. Site owners know when an individual visits their website from Facebook. They don’t know when an individual finds a link to them through their email. Madrigal calls this force “Dark Social”.
• Even in the present Dark Social continues to dominate “social” media. 69% of referrals to websites come from dark social versus about 20% from Facebook and 6% from Twitter.

Read Madrigal’s methodology, how this applies to The Atlantic, why Facebook isn’t really a trade of privacy for social and more over here.

Source: The Atlantic

Via: Quartz

During the Oscars this weekend Hollywood will be covered in gilt and glamour. Yet beneath the surface is an industry that is suffering writes The Economist.

• Profits from movies are decreasing while those from television are rising. This is best signified by the fact that Seth MacFarlane – a man who is known for the TV series Family Guy – will be hosting the Oscars this year.
• People are still watching as many movies as they used to. But they’re getting them in ways that generate lower profits such as through Netflix and other online video streaming services.
• Yet film costs are rising. Technology was expected to make films cheaper, but instead they have become more expensive as directors expect to be able to take their films through expensive post-production processes.
• The rise of social networks mean that when films get negative reviews, the news quickly spreads, and the movie bombs at the box office.
• Emerging markets are not the panacea that they have been for other industries. They pay less for their movie tickets, and rampant piracy means that there are no DVD sales to be had.
• To ensure that people make it to the theaters, studios have focused on films with in-built audiences such as sequels, or those based upon notable characters or books.
• They have also started to pay actors less, and hire first-time directors who demand less money.

Read more about what the movie studios are doing to keep profits up, some hard numbers behind the trends, and why Hollywood, of all industries, should be worried about having hit maturity as well as much more, over here.

Source: The Economist

Sony recently unveiled its next generation console and the event has drawn a fair amount of criticism for failing to show what the device will look like. Russell Brandom wrote that there’s something far more important that Sony was missing: women.

• Sony’s event lasted more than two hours and involved 20 different speakers. Not one of them was female.
• It’s not just Sony. There weren’t any women during the launch of the Wii U, HTC’s phones, or anything that Apple has ever released in recent times.
• The problem runs deep – only 11% of employees in the game industry are female.
• Yet women make up almost half of all gamers.
• The industry is continuing to alienate women by abusing those who play games online or releasing ads like this.
• If women were given a chance to truly shape the industry it’s likely that they would make new types of interesting and enjoyable games that the male dominated industry has yet to consider.
• There is some hope. Microsoft is expected to release the next version of its Xbox soon, and the Xbox development team has a high proportion of females.

Read more about the gender politics of games, some shocking examples of sexism in the industry, and why women don’t get the voice they deserve over here.

Source: The Verge

In an article that should encourage pacifists and discourage military hardliners Gideon Rachman writes that Europe’s military appears to increasingly follow the model suggested by a Danish politician: replace the armed forces with a recorded message saying “we surrender”. Highlights include:

• Due to the era of austerity European countries have cut their defense budgets by large percentages over the past half-decade.
• But this is just one part of a longer term trend. Britain’s army is scheduled to shrink to its smallest size since the Napoleonic wars and France has less than half the submarines it had in 1990.
• Yet Britain and France are still the big spenders. Most other European countries spend far less, and when they do, the money is usually spent on pensions or pay instead of military equipment.
• 75% of Belgian military spending is devoted to its troops. One analyst notes that the Belgian military is better thought of as “an unusually well-armed pension fund”.
• The US may yet prod them into spending more. America was reluctant to get involved in Libya – a war that Europeans led the charge for – and asked to be paid for American military services in Mali.
• But Europe may not. In an era where the threat of land invasion has fallen and recent wars have made clear that terrorism can’t be fought by a conventional military, military spending might not matter anyway.

Rachman’s article is full of fascinating and humorous sentences. It’s an easy read and you can find it here, where he also talks about his overall take on the situation, why Europe can no longer rely on the American military, and some threats that Europe could potentially face.

Source: Financial Times

Via: Marginal Revolution

Mason Levinson and Eben Novy-Williams looked at Lance Armstrong’s haul from a career of doping:

• Over his year career Lance Armstrong has made $218 million.
• Although if you’re hoping to go into the sports doping business, you should know that it’s not as lucrative as Armstrong’s case would suggest. No other individual caught for doping has made even close to that amount.
• Most of Armstrong’s money – $180 million – came from brand endorsements and the speaking circuit.
• But it wasn’t just Armstrong that benefitted from the doping. Through his Livestrong foundation he helped raise over $470 million for cancer research.

Read more about Armstrong’s rise and fall, how much Armstrong contributed to the Livestrong Foundation, and watch a video over here.

Source: Bloomberg

Marya Hannun posted a roundup of a crisis gripping Israel: their Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has a crippling ice cream addiction:

• Netanyahu spends $2,700 a year on ice cream.
• His favourite flavour appears to be pistachio.
• Netanyahu claims that the ice cream is used to entertain guests. Skeptics point out if this was the case then he wouldn’t always be ordering pistachio.
• Obama, for one, prefers chocolate. Perhaps that’s why the two leaders don’t really see eye to eye.

Read more over here.

Source: Foreign Policy

Denise Winterman looked at the key points in the history of the frozen dinner:

• The modern frozen dinner started in 1953 when one retailer had a surplus of Turkey after Thanksgiving. They decided to freeze it up and sell it as a meal.
• While that wasn’t the first TV dinner, it was the first one to pack the food into an aluminum tray that could be used to both cook the food and as a plate for the food.
• The frozen dinner’s popularity was held back until household freezers became more popular.
• The dinners were boosted by changes in family life. More women were working meaning that there wasn’t time to cook. Retailers advertised the dinners to the increasing number of divorced men.
• In recent times frozen food has suffered as consumers have become more concerned with the freshness of their food. But with people unable to afford restaurants due to the recession, frozen dinners have once again become a staple.

Read more about why they were known as TV dinners, the rise of premium frozen food, and “exotic” dinners over here.

Source: BBC

The Economist looked at tourist visas and the varying legal regimes that country’s employ:

• In general poorer countries charge the most for travel visas.
• Some countries such as Bhutan and Sudan appear to prefer that all tourists stay out.
• Others target specific groups. Chinese people visiting Britain need to fill out a 10 page form with biometric information in English. This keeps them away, robbing the country of £2.8 billion a year.
• Those with an American, British or Danish passport are the luckiest. They can go to over 166 countries without a visa.
• Afghans have it the worst. They are only allowed visa-free travel to 21 countries. None of them have direct flight connections from Kabul.

Read more about how Sierra Leone’s tourist visa system compares to Gambia’s, how much the average Chinese tourist spends, why some countries charge America “reciprocity charges”, and more over here.

Source: The Economist

Silicon Valley is looking to model itself upon Las Vegas for its next generation of profits writes David Streitfeld:

• Tech startups are looking to create casino-style games where real money is wagered on platforms such as smartphones and tablets.
• These startups are currently focused on countries other than the United States as the legal framework for online gambling is clearer there.
• Traditional casinos and those opposed to gambling on moral grounds are lobbying against Silicon Valley’s efforts.
• Yet the rewards are so lucrative the market will inevitably open up. Online betting generates $32 billion in revenue outside the US – almost as much as the entire American casino market.
• Games like Diablo III have already sort of experimented with it. Players can sell their randomly generated online items for cash.

Read more about the Valley’s efforts, examples of some of the case studies around, and why Chris Christie has spoken against it (not for the reason that you may think) over here.

Source: The New York Times

The New York Times and Tesla are currently engaged in a fight over a negative review that the Times posted about one of Tesla’s electric cars. Patrick George notes that this isn’t the first time that the auto and journalism industries have been at odds with one another. Here are some of the more interesting examples of the two disagreeing:

• In 1986 CBS aired a special about the unintended acceleration problems of the Audi 5000 sedan. The special included footage of an accelerator pedal pushing itself down. The footage was faked, the charges were baseless, and the news coverage almost destroyed Audi.
• In 1993 Dateline tried to show that GM vehicles had a propensity to explode in cases of side collisions. Footage of such an explosion terrified audiences although most cars would likely have the same problem if Dateline strapped explosives onto the side of other vehicles as well.
• In 2011 ABC produced a segment about random incidents of uncontrollable acceleration in Toyota vehicles. Sales of the vehicles tanked and recalls were initiated. Subsequent analysis has suggested that there was nothing wrong with the cars themselves.
• The history of bad blood between the two industries might be, in part, a result of journalists not truly understanding how cars actually work.

Read other examples of the media both fairly and unfairly targeting automobiles, why journalists do it, and thoughts on the Tesla review over here.

Source: Jalopnik