Stephen Schenkenberg

In The Atlantic, Chris Tackett describes how Svpply has helped him by “fewer, but better, things”:

The more interesting angle to the shopping via bookmark idea is that in some instances bookmarking is even replacing real-world consumption. Just as Megan Garber explained the endorphin hit we can get from adding a great story to our Instapaper queue, I have found that adding items to my Svpply page gives me a similarly pleasant rush of some pleasure-inducing chemicals. When I spot something online that I think has nice design, might be worth-buying later or would make a good gift, I’ll happily click the Buy Later button in my browser to add it to my Svpply page. Once it is there, I am able to revisit the product later and decide if it is really something I want to buy. I have often removed something later that, in an earlier time, I may have actually bought, not realizing I didn’t actually like the design as much as I had thought or simply that I didn’t need it. 

Beautiful work, great writing.

Interesting three-column approach, with individual video clips on the left, related transcript sections in the center, and “Fact Check” call-outs on the right. All synched up well. Impressive.

I’ve been following the iBooks Author discussions with a lot of interest, and I find myself among those (like David Sparks) whose reservations and questions aren’t strong enough to quash the enthusiasm for what we all might be making. As is often the case, a post from John Gruber — Friday’s ”On the Proprietary Nature of the iBooks Author File Format” — has tweaked my understanding of the Apple offering. From the piece:

The output of iBooks Author is no more intended to be an industry standard than are any other Apple-proprietary document formats — Pages, Numbers, Keynote, etc. This is Apple’s own e-book format, intended only to be displayed (played?) using Apple’s own software running on Apple’s own devices. 

As with the end-user licensing kerfuffle, it’s worth noting that the app’s name is iBooks Author, not eBooks Author. Just because there’s demand for an open-standards-based e-book production and layout tool of the scope and caliber of iBooks Author, doesn’t mean Apple has any interest in making such a tool.

Later:

In some sense this is like a rehash of the App Store debate — iBooks Author is a developer tool for the iBooks platform.

Later:

[Daniel] Glazman looks at these new iBooks books and sees a nonstandard proprietary format. Apple looks at these new iBooks and sees layouts and design features that no other e-book platform offers today. One man’s nonstandard is another man’s competitive differentiation.

I plan to take iBooks Author for a spin in the coming months and will report back on my own experience.  

Candid, interesting post from Gina Trapani.

A slideshow at Slate of the movie’s Wes Andersonness.

The start-up already has a million customers and manages more than $2 billion a year in credit card transactions.

Some incredible stats at this year-in-review post:

• Launched Projects: 27,086
• Successful Projects: 11,836
• Dollars Pledged: $99,344,382
• Rewards Selected: 1,150,461
• Total Visitors: 30,590,342
• Project Success Rate: 46%

Since this is behind The New Yorker’s paywall, I’m linking to it mainly so that any subscribers who skipped the piece promptly return and dig in. Hessler, a recent MacArthur Fellow, paints a vivid portrait of Jake Adelstein, an odd-duck reporter from rural Missouri who’s taken on organized crime in Japan. For those who’ve read it, you can listen to Hessler talk about the profile on the magazine’s “Out Loud” podcast.