Five things on Friday #293
Things of note for the week ending Friday April 19th, 2019.
Newsletter #292: Introduction
It's Good Friday. A Bank Holiday. Day one of the four day Easter weekend. I nearly didn't write this week's edition. 'It's a Bank Holiday, Whatters', I said to myself 'take the day off!' - I normally do. As in, FToF normally skips Easter.
I considered it for a short while but then I checked the #5things tag in my inbox and it turns out I have just enough to pull an edition together so, given I have the content and the time, I figured why the hell not?
That said, in light of the restful nature of the day (and weekend trajectory) that I am writing to you, this week's edition will attempt to be a tad restrained. Respectful both of your time and mine.
I'm also going to dick around with some of the templating in this week's edition. A lovely reader highlighted that the weblink to the email isn't very mobile friendly and I think it's a fleshy end-user issue than that of Mailchimp. So I'm gonna try and fix that this week.
To the regulars, do please let me know if things look a bit... funky.
Newbies (all 25 of you this week) don't worry, it's normally better than this.
Sidenote: quite enjoying the fact that we're 290+ issues in and NOW I decide I might want to make the thing look nicer. Hilare.
What else can I tell you?
This week has flown by, I know that much. A fair chunk of work. Some resourcing. A bit of Graham Norton. Some mentoring. All in all, a packed out week. It's funny how four day weeks seem to be a shorter amount of time.
I've eaten a choc ice and I really shouldn't have done. Damn.
Shall we crack on?
Let's.
1. WHEN DO YOU KNOW YOU EMOTIONALLY MATURE?
I'm fairly certain these 26 ways to figure this out are written by Alain De Botton (happy to be wrong, mind). The first one reads:
1. You realise that most of the bad behaviour of other people really comes down to fear and anxiety – rather than, as it is generally easier to presume, nastiness or idiocy. You loosen your hold on self-righteousness and stop thinking of the world as populated by either monsters or fools. It makes things less black and white at first, but in time, a great deal more interesting.
If that hooks you in then go and read the others. I enjoyed it.
Something to read and reflect on. Breathing. That helps too (in an entirely meaningful and not at all sarcastic way - for real - breathing. Deep breaths. Calm. In for five out for ten. That kind of stuff. Do that. And also read the 26 things).
This is one of the best links in this week's edition, btw.
2. FINE. LET'S TALK ABOUT LUSH THEN.
Ten days ago you couldn't move on the internet for hot-takes about THE HUGE MASSIVE NEWS of LUSH announcing it was LEAVING social media!
I mean, honestly:
First thing, look at the original tweet. Look at it. The gif literally says WE'RE SWITCHING UP SOCIAL. Not off. Up.
'Right, makes sense - for Lush at least' - I thought. Then I promptly forgot about it. Until about four days later the following week when my boss (Hi Dani) asked for a POV on it and I ended pulling on the noodle that I'd discarded to a corner in my brain which subsequently turned from a 'Sure, I've got one - when do you want it' to 'Here's the whole darn thing in an email - actually this is alright, should I write it up properly and pitch it?'
And so we did.
Now you can go and read the article linked above (it's on The Drum so if you're not signed up to its free wall, that might annoy you) the two key things to take out are this:
1. Take note of what Lush is actually going to do next.
Everyone went nuts when it got announced. NUTS. The subsequent (and if you ask me entirely obvious) announcement that followed sailed completely under the radar. What's that? You missed it did you? Funny that. Lush is still making content. It's just asking its stores and its staff (and its community) to share it instead. Big woop. Basically, the exact same strategy - just using different/more human signposts instead.
2. Lush is bloody good at PR.
A tiny policy change? Tens of thousands of words and headlines. Phenomenal.
While it is a touch self-serving, I genuinely would love you to read the thing that I wrote. I remember thinking at the time 'Surely this is obvious what's going to happen next, right?' and it was.
The 'clue' was in the gif.
I don't know why more people didn't call it.
3. FOLDING PHONES ARE GOING WELL THEN
I quite liked this video review (from The Verge).
Must've been shot before they all started breaking. Aye carumba.
I reckon Huawei will be testing the living hell out of its foldable entry now...
4. DISKOAVER WEEKLY
This is great.
My friend Kibbe has a playlist that she updates quasi-weekly-ish.
It's called DISKOAVER WEEKLY (nice) and a) I think Kibbe is awesome, b) Kibbe has great taste in music, and c) you should add it your Spotify/sub to her newsletter update that goes with it.
Fun fact: Kibbe HATES EMAIL. We had a fair old back and forth this week on whether or not the playlist should be a newsletter and I think... I HOPE... that where Kibbe bottomed out on it works out. There's only one way to find out.... AMIRITE?
Go get the playlist and go get that newsletter.
5. THANK YOU, NIK BUTLER
This newsletter started out as a blog post series (true story). At some point in history, I added a 'Publish to Mailchimp' plug into my WordPress and then I had a newsletter. At some point after that the newsletter became more popular than the blog itself.
So much more popular in fact that at the start of the year I stopped updating the blog entirely and left a 'Hey, come subscribe to the newsletter' note there instead (go see)
In short: I don't update the website anymore. And as such, I've not been updating plug-ins, or databases or whatever. And this week it seemed to be under attack. Random admins appearing in my back end, so to speak. It was not fun.
My guy. My man. The boss of all back-end ops that not runs the hosting but also set this whole thing up originally, Mr Nicholas Butler - aka @loudmouthman - has been phenomenal throughout. Fixing (or killing) anything that looked like a backdoor and basically being an awesome human.
Thanks Nik.
If you, dear reader, are looking for someone to help out on ANYTHING web/hosting/backend/security... or literally everything else I literally know nothing about then hit Nik up. Or reply to this email and I'll connect you.
THE ESSENTIALS:
The Essentials are the weekly links to the #MeToo movement. Any article. Any press. Any story. Any white male firing. If it happens, it's here.
This big old piece on adland from last weekend's Observer deserves a mention (it went out after I hit send on last week's edition and I literally just missed it. You've probably all read it by now but if not, DO SO. Thanks)
WELCOME TO THE BONUS SECTION. BONUS LINKS FOR BONUS EYES. LOOK AT YOUR LOVELY BONUS EYES.
JOKES ASIDE, THERE ARE SOME ABSOLUTE CRACKERS HERE. STRAP IN.
Calm down dear, it's only adveritsing - is effing great. Read it.
Ben Smoke was at Ally Pally to see Robyn the same night as I was. His write is one of the best things I've read all week. Bloody read it. I cried.
THREAD: 'This week in social media advertising' - gotta be seen to be believed this one.
Alex Honnold from FREE SOLO (not seen it? See it) breaks down iconic rock climbing scenes. This is ace.
Facebook is ending P2P payments in FB Messenger. Apparently, no one used it. I used it though. A lot. Rubbish that this is going.
Speaking of FACEBOOK and RUBBISH. Avid fan of the Five Things, Iain, sent in a note regarding Facebook caving to the EU and finally adjusting advertising rules for the incoming European Elections.The EU, not Facebook's best mate at the best of times, is probably not that happy with the time wasting but we'll see how that one bottoms out. Good job there's no GDPR complaints being filed anytime soon, eh?
In other Facebook news, in a blog post on its newsroom site back in March (and posted under the category of 'Integrity and Security'), Facebook fessed up to having tens of thousands of Instagram passwords being stored in a readable format. In the past 24hrs, that post has been quietly updated to say 'sorry, we meant millions'. Cool. Cool.
Finally, in the Facebook front at least, did you know that Facebook's Portal product is now down to half-price less than six months after its release? I am shook.
Brands: 'How do you make something go viral on Twitter?'. Twitter: 'You do this'
I didn't know the Guardian Long Reads were available as podcasts and you can get them through your smart speaker. This is great news.
I have ongoing conversations with Dom about Stories, Facebook ads, in-feed ads, sound-on etc (as well as other stuff but mainly this). He's a great resource for provocative thinking on this. Give him a follow.
I did not know The Texas Switch was called such a thing and I certainly didn't know it was still used so much.
A few weeks ago I waxed lyrical about the best speaker at the Khoros Engage event being Dr Hannah Fry. That talk wasn't recorded BUT the good doctor recently tweeted a recording of the same talk at a different event. Dr Fry is brilliant. You should watch this.