The week’s posts on a single page (most recent at the top):
Always On My Mind
Some book decisions I’ve made, following a few weeks of thinking about it before I get time to actually work on it:
- It’ll be concise and relatively short
- I’ll produce a PDF only (for now at least)
- It’ll be aimed at parents (I’d struggled with deciding who exactly this project is for)
- It’ll be done by the end of this year
Libra
In the emerging world of cryptocurrency, Facebook’s Libra project is looking shaky.
Here’s the latest word:
- Libra is likely to miss its scheduled 2020 launch
- Politicians, officials and regulators have warned that the project carries risks for financial stability and money laundering
- Among the original 28 members, seven have pulled out, including Booking.com, PayPal, eBay, Stripe, Mastercard and Visa
Strategy
Nir Eyal used to show tech companies how they could get and keep people’s attention. He wrote a book on it called Hooked: How To Build Habit Forming Products.
The “hook model” he developed advocates building a “mind monopoly” by associating a product with internal emotional triggers, such as loneliness or a fear of missing out. The developer’s goal is that people are triggered to use the product “with little conscious thought”. (source)
Whether we’re now guilty of addiction to social media and our phones, or overuse or distraction, there’s clearly a bit of an issue.
Eyal has written a new book, telling us how to break the habit: Indistractable: How To Control Your Attention And Choose Your Life.
“We need a new skill set,” he says.
I’ll read it and let you know what I think.
Be Someone
Do you want to be your own boss?
I realised that I did when I saw this TV ad when I was 17:
I discovered that no one teaches you how to be a freelancer. You just have to work it out. Listen to others who have done it successfully, heed advice from those who know, and, possibly take a course, such as this one, which is on Udemy.com and really helpful.
Two Tribes
Heard of Taboola? What about Outbrain?
These two are responsible for the layers of ads that appear at the bottom of lots and lots of webpages, sometimes even decent ones (those “Recommended articles” and the like).
They’re very profitable, they’re merging (actually Taboola seem to have bought Outbrain), and the combined company is expected to make $2 billion in revenue next year, which explains exactly why we see those ads everywhere.
Long Time Coming
I’ve long been a fan of QR codes.
I had one printed on the back of a T-shirt when I was working on my novel, Naughty By Nature (that didn’t actually make it to Amazon).
I had them printed on a couple of business cards (the same one to promote Naughty By Nature, and another when I was raising money).
I even had a meeting a couple of years ago with Iron Maiden’s manager to convince him that they’re worth using on bottles of the band’s beer too (no joy).
I thought they’d barely come alive, and then died.
Until recently, when I saw a post on LinkedIn by my good friend Stuart, saying that “Nike are using them in store to label clothes on mannequins. You simply scan the code with your phone and it shows you where it is in the store”.
Stuart went on:
Were you aware that you could just scan QR codes with your camera?
I wasn’t, but I am now.
Maybe there’s life in them yet.
Free
Let’s say you have an idea for a business and you want to register a domain name or two for a website.
How do you check to see if the names you’re thinking of are actually available?
One way is to go to your browser and type the name in and see what comes up.
There is a better way: go to one of the many domain name registration companies and look there. I always use Namecheap.com (good prices and great service).
PS You don’t need to spend £1,500 to register a domain. You should be able to get a decent, relevant name registered for less than a tenner.
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