qpost – Coté

@Walmart Labs’ Tim Kimmet talks what’s in store for mobile shoppers

"More than 50 percent of Walmart customers have smartphones, and mobile is driving more than 40 percent of Walmart.com seasonal traffic."

—@Walmart Labs’ Tim Kimmet talks what’s in store for mobile shoppers

The Joys of Marginalia

I can’t really concentrate on reading unless I have a pen in my hand. I love marginalia. I love used books and getting a glimpse of some stranger’s relationship to a book that is now in my life. I underline, star, box, vent, exclaim. I like rereading my books and seeing coffee stains or chocolaty fingerprints I left behind the last time I read them.

—The Joys of Marginalia

The 100 person limit

Size and internal vs. external coordination costs matter a lot. North of 100 people in a company, employees don’t all know each other. Politics become important. Incentives change. Signaling that work is being done may become more important than actually doing work. These costs are almost always underestimated. Yet they are so prevalent that professional investors should and do seriously reconsider before investing in companies that have more than one office. Severe coordination problems may stem from something as seemingly trivial or innocuous as a company having a multi-floor office. Hiring consultants and trying to outsource key development projects are, for similar reasons, serious red flags. While there’s surely been some lessening of these coordination costs in the last 40 years—and that explains the shift to somewhat smaller companies—the tendency is still to underestimate them. Since they remain fairly high, they’re worth thinking hard about.

—The 100 person limit

The beast known as Samsung

If there was a common thread among everyone The Verge spoke with for this story, it was Samsung’s brutal dominance: the Korean giant’s own-sourced display and processor combined with an enormous marketing war chest make competing in Android extraordinarily difficult.

—The beast known as Samsung

Bowl Cherries, circa long ago

Was the Renaissance something that you put on and took off like a diadem, or was it something you did even while you slept?

—Bowl Cherries, circa long ago

The Money Shot

At Stanford, Systrom opted to go abroad to Florence, Italy, for the winter term of his junior year, where he focused on photography. A teacher there persuaded him to switch from his Nikon to a plastic Holga that took square photos, a choice that would be echoed later at Instagram.

—The Money Shot

The trouble with our increasing clock speed

Through it all, we don’t have to become hermits. But we must not allow ourselves to continue being junkies.

—The trouble with our increasing clock speed

How would you define work in a networked world?

Most of these dynamics predate the internet, but digital technologies are magnifying their salience. People keep returning to the mantra of “work-life balance” as a model for thinking about their lives, even as it’s hard to distinguish between what constitutes work and what constitutes life, which is presumably non-work. But this binary makes little sense for many people. And it raises a serious question: what does labor mean in a digital ecosystem where sociality is monetized and personal and professional identities are blurred?

—How would you define work in a networked world?

Mobile, Informed Consent, and the Permission First Web

As IBM now cleverly says Mobile isn’t a Device, Its Data… We’re heading into a beautiful, bright, future where Data is Eating The World and solving tough problems…

—Mobile, Informed Consent, and the Permission First Web

The Truth About Pattern Matching

menswear techniques that sounds really important and next level, but, when you think about it, is really just a basic move you used to do all the time as a kid.

—The Truth About Pattern Matching

Report: IBM, Lenovo x86 server deal hits the skids

Buying IBM’s x86 server business is the quickest way for Lenovo to rocket up the rankings and become the number four server maker in the world, behind IBM and far behind Hewlett-Packard and Dell. The deal would make Lenovo the number three x86 server maker instantly.

—Report: IBM, Lenovo x86 server deal hits the skids

People will do more with Big Data than big companies can

The history of computing over the last 30 years is one of lurches forward every time individuals got the power to do what only big enterprises could do previously — and to do a much better job of it.

—People will do more with Big Data than big companies can

In-N-Out Burger Coming To Austin: Austinist

{{{Better get a bucket}}} In-N-Out Burger has reportedly applied for a permit to build what would be its first Austin location near I-35 and Airport Boulevard. The west coast burger chain had already announced plans to open a store in Round Rock.

—In-N-Out Burger Coming To Austin: Austinist