Good morning, world, and happy Tuesday!
Greetings from sunny Sofia, where global warming is in full force. An eventful week in the travel and tech circles, drawn back by the gravitational forces from Einstein’s theory — what a massive leap for science. Heavy section at the end.
Non-Travel Starters
Apple is developing a TV series, moving seriously into the Netflix and Amazon turf. The first show, ‘Vital Signs’ will feature Dr. Dre and will bolster its streaming service. Generating content has not been in Apple’s portfolio before, but as the fight for the big screen continues, we might see Hollywood challenged. Link.
Yahoo!’s bet on Tumblr hasn’t yet produced the expected $100M revenue per year in advertizing — some blame it on the wrong strategy to combine the sales forces of the two companies, which is now being reversed by CEO Mayer. While hiccups have slowed down the acquisition, we have to agree that 550M MAUs with 80% of them being on mobile is a valuable asset. Link.
In the non-digital world, bottled water becomes the new battle ground for Pepsi and Coke. As the companies fight the wave against ‘sugary’ drinks and try to position themselves as a healthy choice, the $13Bn market for 2,000 times more expensive bottled water (as opposed to the equally healthy alternative of tap water) will see a nice face off with new brands emerging. Link.
To finish the tech scene (among many other pieces), watch this outstanding snippet of what Jeff Weiner said to LinkedIn’s employees after the company stock dived 40% in a single day. What a leader. Link.
Snacks
Expedia is moving into a new way to monetize hotels by its Accelerator program, where hotels can bid for placement on the agency’s site. That’s huge news, given that the model is more relevant for meta-search players than agencies. The hotel platform revamp in the last few years is starting to pay off — pair that with the acquisition spree as of late and we might see a stock that chases PCLN’s in the markets. The blurred line between meta and agencies is disappearing. Link.
AirBnB might not be as popular as people think — in a recent study by Travelex, only 4% of surveyed pollsters said they would use the service when planning their vacation. Now, that’s a vastly different number from the often-cited 35%, so you be the judge who to trust. One thing is undeniable — AirBnB accommodation is more appealing to the 24–35 segment. My bet? Huge revamp in loyalty programs is on its way, both in hotels and other travel services… Link.
IATA’s Tony Tyler projects $700Bn in GDP and 33M jobs directly linked to aviation for APAC this year. Globally, the number sits at $2.4Tn — a big industry indeed. Link.
Finally, a light read on expert talk in the flyer community — *G and ex-LAX are must-know terms if you love flying frequently. Link.
Dessert (or Stats)
$68.3Bn: Remittances to Latin America in 2015 alone. Huge, huge market for TransferWise. Link.
11,000,000: Apple Music subscribers. At $12.99 a pop, that is easily over $100M a year. Link.
800,000: HBO standalone subscribers, which is quite impressive. Link.
Some Cool Reading (Watching)
Heavy today.
Jelly beans and your life — 2 min to wow you where we spend our time. (2 min). Hat Tip: Piotr. Link.
Gravitational waves is the big science news from last week and it is important as it was the last missing (unproven) link of Einstein’s theory of relativity. In short, gravitational waves behave the same way light waves do and travel at the same speed in space. A delightful, almost dumb-down read by IFLScience (4 min). Link.
In other piece of science news (yes, I do read ScienceDaily.com), British scientist found a way to record 1.125Tb/sec, which is huge news — that has to do with transmission of information. Imagine a world where Game of Thrones (the entire show) could be donwloaded in a second. Netflix should be happy. (3 min). Link.
A great short read on why we shouldn’t hire for a culture fit, but rather find the missing culture pieces and hire for that. (2 min), Hat Tip: Buzz. Link.
Designers shouldn’t code. A counter view that emphasizes that design people should have a more grounded view on business models than on coding skills, which has pushed me into thinking — why designers alone? At the end of the day — ‘Let’s build it, we will figure out the business model later.’ — has worked for Facebook and Google, but not for Twitter and 1,000,000 other companies. Frank, Stuart, and Hugh will be delighed. (3 min). Link.
Finally, Eddie Cue and Craig Federighi talk about scale at Apple. I lifted this from Benedict Evan’s newsletter, an enjoyable one hour of learning here. Link.
//Expressed views and opinions are my own.
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