Here’s a summary of interesting stories I’ve seen over the last week. I try to concentrate on the stories which aren’t necessarily mainstream.

Sport & hospitality

Q: How much do you think Marlboro sponsor Ferrari?

A: Around $100m per year.

As we watch more and more on-demand television, the value of live sports television just keeps rising. http://www.sportspromedia.com/news/ferrari-spark-marlboro-renewal

(By comparison, Farmers insurance sponsor a Nascar team for around $16m – see http://www.espn.com/racing/nascar/story/_/id/20747751/nascar-lawsuit-shows-anatomy-farmers-deal-hendrick-motorsports).

By 2030, coffee shops in the UK will outnumber pubs. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41251451

Data

One of my favourites of the week: This great case study on how Transport for London (TfL) researched passenger movement around tube stations using WiFi data. They also watched how different passengers move between stations when there is disruption on the network. The case study proves how it’s possible to use aggregated, anonymised data to generate insight.

http://content.tfl.gov.uk/review-tfl-wifi-pilot.pdf

 

Possibly the best bit of content marketing this week: how the traffic to the porn website, Pornhub, changed during and after the iPhone X launch.

https://thenextweb.com/apple/2017/09/13/pornhub-stats-apple-iphone-x

The Pixel 2 launch

The Pixel 2, made by Google (well, HTC) and Pixel 2 XL, made by Google (well, LG) https://thenextweb.com/google/2017/09/14/fcc-filings-confirm-lg-making-google-pixel-2-xl

Start-ups & innovation

A good article with ten summary points on 430 of Israel’s Artificial Intelligence start-ups. For example, Israeli AI start-ups typically exit at an average multiple of 8.2 times their total funding.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/israels-artificial-intelligence-startups-daniel-singer

 

Meet Taurus Dexterous, a VR (Virtual Reality) controlled military bomb disposal robot. I’m sorry about the cheesy music in the video. This kind of VR application, where it’s too dangerous for humans to venture, is welcome.

 

Facebook’s futuristic smart glasses, including patent info and VR/AR (Virtual Reality/ Augmented Reality) combination. Google was so, so close to getting it right with a head-up display unit on a pair of spectacles. It’s also fun to watch Facebook and Snap (who released their own spectacles last year in the US and this summer in the UK) constantly trying to outdo each other.

http://uk.businessinsider.com/facebook-smart-glasses-ar-oculus-patent-2017-8?r=US&IR=T

 

Get ready for ‘Halo’ in Virtual Reality. The key point here is that Microsoft uses its Halo brand to launch new tech to their massive consumer base.

https://www.engadget.com/2017/08/28/halo-mixed-reality

 

My Blog articles

Has Google ever sold the most valuable advertising slot on the Internet? https://bradbox.com/blog/google-homepage-advert/

 

(Expensive) Fun

SpaceX released a video showing how ‘failure’ is part of a company’s culture, with a little humour thrown in.

The next time your company says it can’t try something new because the project is too valuable to fail, imagine a space rocket with a customer’s one-off multi-million dollar satellite on board…