Links are the Killer App

“I may be wrong but it looks like Google’s fear of the mobile ecosystem – that apps cannot be crawled, indexed and searched for may be an overreaction. It is precisely because apps cannot be crawled, indexed and searched for, the mobile application ecosystem’s expansion will be limited – mobile app discovery will continue to rely on the web. Apps are isolated and cannot link to a particular state of another app. No links, no network effects. The expansion of the app ecosystem is currently limited by the number of apps in the market; With each new app in the market users will require more time to search for a suitable app. More websites, however, actually encourages even more websites, due to linking and references between all the websites; More websites enable users to discover faster the website they derive the most value out of (due to linking). More mobile applications, on the other hand, do not.” – meric

“It’s all news to someone”

“So let’s call this the newsonomics of the shiny new wrapper, a movement that is allowing editors, publishers, broadcasters and marketers to reimagine what (and how) they can offer to long-time and would-be readers.” – Ken Doctor

This is the space where my most interesting and most recent conversations are occurring.

I see a huge opportunity for publishers to repackage their existing assets in meaningful ways. Ways that add ongoing value to readers. Ways that really highlight existing expertise across a multitude of channels that were historically very challenging to pursue.

“I want to be open the possibility of gap time.”

“I want to ask people a simple question: are you happy with your relationship with your phone. Do you think it’s a healthy one?

I don’t think I have a healthy relationship with mine. I feel a constant need to pull it out – to check email, to text, to see if there is something interesting happening RIGHT NOW. It’s constantly pulling on my attention. [show the 2 slides on ‘phone addiction’ and ‘35% look before getting out of bed’]. Do you do this? I do.

If I let it, it easily fills up those gaps in my day—some gaps of boredom, some of solitude.” – Joe Kraus

Be Unafraid

“Fear-mongerers leverage our willingness to pay attention to fearful stimuli in order to generate attention. A fearful newspaper headline captures people’s attention. This draws people into paying attention to the newspaper as a whole, which is precisely the intention of headlines. Likewise, when TV anchors are spouting off fearful information, people are far less willing to turn the channel. Again, this is of interest to the television network. .” – Dana Boyd

“What am I resisting more than x?”

Mark Foster (author of the highly recommended, Do it Tomorrow) has an exceedingly simple and powerful task management system called: Final Version.

“The FV algorithm uses the question ‘What do I want to do before I do x?’ to preselect a chain of tasks from the list. What exactly is meant by ‘want’ in this context is deliberately left undefined. There may be a whole variety of reasons why you might want to do one thing before another thing and all of them are valid.”

Brilliant in its simplicity. No fancy software needed. Just pen, paper, and the desire to do something.

The title of this post? That’s advanced.