Group items tagged

if it affected them emotionally

evangelize

brightened a bad day

it makes them feel special or ahead of the curve

distinctive feature

Apple made the headphones white when other companies all used black

Practical value

they need to be able to tell its story

TOMS shoes

“My daughter got this in the mail!” he said. “She’s still in high school, and you’re sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?” The manager didn’t have any idea what the man was talking about. He looked at the mailer. Sure enough, it was addressed to the man’s daughter and contained advertisements for maternity clothing, nursery furniture and pictures of smiling infants. The manager apologized and then called a few days later to apologize again. On the phone, though, the father was somewhat abashed. “I had a talk with my daughter,” he said. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my house I haven’t been completely aware of. She’s due in August. I owe you an apology.”

How do you take advantage of someone’s habits without letting them know you’re studying their lives?

most cues fit into one of five categories: location, time, emotional state, other people or the immediately preceding action.

We’d put an ad for a lawn mower next to diapers. We’d put a coupon for wineglasses next to infant clothes. That way, it looked like all the products were chosen by chance. “And we found out that as long as a pregnant woman thinks she hasn’t been spied on, she’ll use the coupons. She just assumes that everyone else on her block got the same mailer for diapers and cribs. As long as we don’t spook her, it works.”

combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought

I can just about cope with threats

state attorney’s office to convict Macchione on 19 counts, one of which was cyberstalking

Macchione was sentenced to four years in prison.

Despite his pattern of abusive online behavior, Macchione was ultimately arrested for an unrelated physical crime.

he officers she spoke to—who thought usernames were secret codes and didn’t seem to know what an IP address was

The officers were unanimous in advising me to take a break from Twitter, assuming, as many people do, that Twitter is at best a time-wasting narcotic.

Pew found that from 2000 to 2005, the percentage of Internet users who participate in online chats and discussion groups dropped from 28 percent to 17 percent, “entirely because of women’s fall off in participation.

Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman draws a distinction between “tourists” and “vagabonds” in the modern economy

On the Internet, men are tourists and women are vagabonds.

Nathan Jurgenson

Twitter “has a history of saying ‘too bad, so sad’” when confronted with concerns about harassment on its platform