Zag To The Zig #24 :: Trump's Social Media election tactics, AirBnB losing money & copyrighting the robot
Good news for all you Curiosity Cats out there. In general, people who are more curious are happier (yeah, whatever) and better liked (now we’re talking!!).
This is what tickled my ZTTZ-bones this week.
In the Economy Room
I experienced the weird economics of the platform economy firsthand when I had to cancel my AirBnB reservation in Austin (due to the cancellation of the SXSW festival there). Luckily, the owner had pretty relaxed cancellation conditions, but less so with AirBnB. Not only had they been sitting on the upfront payment for a few months (no doubt generating an interest), they also didn’t refund the ’service fee’ of about 150€. Little service, lots of fee when you think that the cancellation of this 1 event is causing an estimated loss of income of $350m for the local Austin economy.
At the same time, this article mapped out the big costs (and losses) that AirBnB is experiencing, while preparing for their IPO: marketing, acquisition, tech upgrade (100 milion!!) and - intriguingly - safety. Interesting times.
Crazy. This study found that the gender pay gap is also present in types of work that can be done anonymously. The researchers used the Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing platform to analyse 5 million tasks and found that women were paid 10.5% less than men. Expectations!
Even if the bias of employers is removed by hiding the gender of workers as happens on MTurk, it seems that women may select lower paying opportunities themselves because their lower reservation wage influences the types of tasks they are willing to work on.
In the Tech Basement
A few weeks ago, a Chinese court ruled that an article written by a piece of (TenCent) software was covered by copyright protection. The court claimed "the article's structure was reasonable, the logic was clear and it had a certain originality”.
In the Ethics Corridor
Privacy vs digital-ad-driven business models, pt 1040. Publishers are in for a tough time (with Chrome’s upcoming cookie restrictions etc), but this report from an industry summit doesn’t fill me with confidence. I fear publishers will need a lot more radical & creative re-thinking to monetise their added value, not just re-hashing the old media-buying model.
In-depth profile of the people and tactics behind Trump’s 2016 Social media campaign. Less Cambridge Analytics than we think, it seems. And blimey, the key Facebook account manager helping the Republican team, hated Trump (and left afterwards).
As a speaker, I like a good, well-structured keynote speech. I love the format. And this talk about Meaning at Work was pleasing in that respect. Good tempo, one simple take-away. Fulfillment is based on relationships, impact on other people (not fixing Corona on your own) and personal growth.
(Note, I also do love the 1,75 speed setting on YouTube)
In the Innovation Kitchen
I was never fit to run a start-up (I tried, learnt a lot, not for me). But if you are one of those budding entrepreneurs, do read the 11 mistakes to avoid when trying to build your company, both economically and culturally. Insightful, be it a little traditional. Obviously, I would add Alignment to that ;-)
🏁 End note: 1 thing I’ll be doing this week
I’ll be planning my whole of next week, as the SXSW festival in Austin was canceled. I think, given that Black Swan called Corona Virus, I may accelerate my reading of Nassim Taleb’s ‘Anti-Fragility’ (beware, very unfashionable website). At the very minimum, I will be guaranteed a few smiles per hour (rare for such a difficult topic).