Amazon Prime Video will now show pay-per-view UFC fights

 If you’re a UFC fan you’ll now have another place to watch fights – Amazon Prime Video. The online retailers just announced that starting with UFC 222 on March 3rd, all pay-per-view UFC fights will be available to buy and watch on Amazon prime. Fights can be preordered and also purchased up to four hours after the start time (in case you want to tune in late just for a… Read More

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/28/amazon-prime-video-will-now-show-pay-per-view-ufc-fights/?ncid=rss

Amazon will now pay Alexa developers for top-performing skills for kids

 Last year, Amazon announced a program that would reward developers for building popular and well-received Alexa skills, by doling out cash payments for top-performing skills. Initially, the program was only open to game skill developers – as that was a category Amazon wanted to encourage – before expanding in August to a limited set of other categories. Today, Amazon is expanding… Read More

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/28/amazon-will-now-pay-alexa-developers-for-top-performing-skills-for-kids/?ncid=rss

Short-attention-span theatre

Being first is insufficient.

Google wasn't the first search engine. Facebook wasn't the first social network. Apple wasn't the first home computer, phone or smart watch. Amazon wasn't the first online bookstore.

Before Sonos, before Alexa, before Google Home, there was the HomePod. [pic 1, pic 2]

In 2004, Dan Lovy and I launched a device that could take the music on your hard drive and play it through your stereo. And some other stuff, too. You certainly don't own one. We were five years too early for early adopters and ten years too early for the beginning of the mass market.

I've jumped the timing before. 

You can see the same thing happen to inventors of online shopping carts, ad networks, auction sites, ad formats, file sharing, crypto applications, all of it... Even non-profits and musical styles.

I've embraced that pattern for years. Going first. It's thrilling. Not particularly profitable, but thrilling.

Too often, we come to believe that there's some sort of idea race going on. While some need the froth and magic of the new, it turns out that culture is changed by persistence most of all. Be an inventor if you choose, but don't expect that you'll be the one driving the bus once the masses decide to get on.

 

[The third episode of my Akimbo podcast is out today. It's about VF 145: The Square Tomato. The podcast is now one of the top 100 in the world, thanks to you.]

       

from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/529283326/0/sethsblog~Shortattentionspan-theatre.html

Amazon launches its Prime Music service in India

 Amazon has quietly launched its Prime Music service in India today. The retailer brought its Prime service to India some 18 months ago, but at the time it was lacking the free music and video streaming services. Amazon added the Prime Video months later, but it has taken some time for the music service to be deemed ready for the market. Medianama — where we first read of today’s… Read More

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/28/amazon-prime-music-india/?ncid=rss

Sonos One’s Alexa support comes to Canada

 Sonos One users in Canada can now join their peers south of the border in yelling requests at their connected speakers – a free update issued today enables Amazon Alexa on the Sonos One. The One launched with Alexa support in the U.S., but while the speaker has been available to Canadian buyers since late last year, Alexa voice commands are new with the update. That means Canadians will… Read More

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/27/sonos-ones-alexa-support-comes-to-canada/?ncid=rss

Amazon is buying smart doorbell maker Ring

 With Nest’s first smart video doorbell right around the corner, Amazon is busy buying up the competition. After acquiring Blink just two months ago, Amazon is now acquiring Ring, makers of the self-titled Ring doorbell (plus a bunch of other security gear, like solar security cameras, floodlight cams, and an in-home alarm system). Geekwire broke the rumor this afternoon, and we’ve… Read More

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/27/amazon-is-buying-smart-doorbell-maker-ring/?ncid=rss

BMW says in-car digital assistants have to go beyond being ‘Echo Dots in a cup holder’

 BMW wants to bring personal assistants to the car, but it doesn’t want to build its own. Instead, it wants to work with Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others to bring the best features of their platforms to its cars. “We don’t want Alexa to drive our car. That’s not a good fit,” Dieter May, BMW’s senior VP for digital products and services, told me during… Read More

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/27/bmw-says-in-car-digital-assistants-have-to-go-beyond-being-echo-dots-in-a-cup-holder/?ncid=rss

Low & Slow (vs. fear)

My sourdough rye bread failed. For the first time since I've been baking from this starter, this weekend's batch didn't work.

I know why.

I rushed it.

I didn't let the dough ferment long enough.

And then I made the oven hotter, in an effort to get the loaves finished so I could leave to meet someone.

That's not how great bread works. It's ready when it's ready, not when you need it to be.

Of course, the analogy is obvious. Much of the work we do as creators, as leaders, as people seeking to make change--it needs to ferment, to create character and tension and impact. And if we rush it, we get nothing worth very much.

There's a flipside.

Sometimes, we mistakenly believe that we're building something that takes time, but what we're actually doing is hiding. We stall and digress and cause distractions, not because the work needs us to, but because we're afraid to ship.

Impatience can be a virtue if it causes us to leap through the fear that holds us back.

 

[PS thanks for your support for Catherine Hoke's new book. Loyal readers like you made it a national bestseller on its first day--only Michelle Obama had a faster-moving book. If you didn't get a copy yesterday, I hope you'll check it out. It will change you in ways you don't expect. Here's a review that got posted yesterday:

Odds are, you've never been to prison...but as humans, we're masters at creating our own. Our prison may be the shame of our past, a desire for perfection or our need for acceptance. The walls might be the potential we haven't realized, a loved one we hurt or even a conversation we never got a chance to have.

By bravely sharing her personal story and the behind-the-scenes look at the important and generous movement she's leading at Defy Ventures, Cat Hoke gives us all a second chance...to speak up, to lead and to make a difference.]

       

from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/528984604/0/sethsblog~Low-amp-Slow-vs-fear.html

"You can't be curious and angry at the same time"

The first time I met Catherine Hoke, she changed my life. That's what she does at Defy. She changes lives.

After more than a year of persistent nudging, I was finally able to persuade her to share her story and her wisdom in a new book.

I'm thrilled that it came out this morning.

Defy works with men and women who were formerly incarcerated. They work with business leaders who are used to being treated with respect and privilege. And they work with volunteers across the country.

Mostly, what Defy does, what Cat does, is help people understand that forgiveness is a powerful tool, one that's easily overlooked. That when you're busy holding a grudge, it's difficult to open your arms to the possibility that's all around us.

Alex Peck and I spent nine months helping Cat bring this book to the world. We've donated 20,000 hardcover copies to Defy, so that every copy sold contributes 100% to their important work.

I hope you'll buy a copy (or several) today. It's a game changer, and I'm confident you'll be glad you took the leap.

Here's an unsolicited note we got the other day:

I finished reading A Second Chance yesterday and immediately started it again. It is easily the most impactful book I have read in years, if not ever. I find myself continually referencing it in conversation and can't wait for others to be able to read it. I have a list of people I'm ordering it for. I've been giving out copies of What To Do When It's Your Turn for years and now I have a new book I can't wait to give to people.

Thank you, Seth and the rest of the team for your investment in Cat, Defy and this book. The work of Seth and the Domino Project have been tremendous influencers on my life and work for years and this book takes that to a whole new level.

Best regards,
-scott

       

from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/528812586/0/sethsblog~You-cant-be-curious-and-angry-at-the-same-time.html

Crooks launder money using real (and fake) Amazon ebooks

 In a fascinating post, Brian Krebs and a group of security researchers have found a method for laundering money through expensive ebooks. It started when author Patrick Reames received an Amazon tax form saying he’d made $24,000 selling his books through Amazon’s CreateSpace, the company’s book-printing arm. His books didn’t sell nearly that many copies, he thought,… Read More

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/26/crooks-launder-money-using-real-and-fake-amazon-ebooks/?ncid=rss

Fun, urgent or fear-based

Most of what we do at work all day is one of these three.

Fun: It's engaging, it gives us satisfaction, people smile.

Urgent: Someone else (or perhaps we) decided that this paper is on fire and it has to be extinguished before anything else happens.

Fear-based: Most common of all, the things we do to protect ourselves from the fear we'd have to sit with if we didn't do them.

Not on this list: important.

A day spent doing important work is rare indeed. Precious, too.

       

from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/528748336/0/sethsblog~Fun-urgent-or-fearbased.html

Totaled

A car is totaled when the cost of fixing it is more than the cost of buying a similar used car in good condition.

The broken car is a sunk cost. It doesn't matter how much you paid for it. It's a gift from the you of yesterday to the you of today. And it arrived broken, so broken that it's cheaper to buy a different one than to fix this one. Reject the gift from your earlier self. It's no gift at all.

Sunk costs are all around us. Commitments and engagements and assets that were hard to get, but are now totaled. They're gifts from the you of yesterday, and it's okay to refuse them.

       

from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/528526138/0/sethsblog~Totaled.html

The rigor imperative

When the project is emotional, or urgent, or loaded with resonance, it's easy to dispense with rigor. It is, after all, an emergency. No time for the process, for doing the hard part first, seeking best practices, or reverse engineering toward the desired result...

Of course, the opposite is true. If it's worth getting into a swizzle about, it's worth doing properly. 

Do the math, do the reading, do the budget. Do it right.

       

from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/528325430/0/sethsblog~The-rigor-imperative.html