What You Need to Know Today: November 5

Here’s what you need to know

TECH

Facebook hit another milestone today. Last August, Facebook announced that one billion people visited the site in one day. The news was chalked up as a fluke. But today, as Facebook announces third quarter results, the numbers prove this was no fluke. The ‘book averages 1.01 billion users per day now, and 1.55 billion monthly users. What’s more, 1.39 billion of the 1.55 billion monthly users are on mobile. Facebook says 78% of its advertising revenue comes from mobile. If you need any incentive to optimize your website for mobile, just read these numbers.

This app really blows. “For the estimated 25 million Americans that suffer from asthma, there’s a new way to use smartphones to check for something far more vital: lung function.” I know first hand how important catching asthma attacks early can be. It’s the difference between taking a one-minute break to catch your breath, to spending the next 10 minutes feeling like you’re breathing through a straw. “Wingis a sensor that plugs directly into a smartphone’s headphone jack and connects with a companion app. Users blow into the sensor to receive readings of FEV1, which measures how much air they can blow out in one second, and peak flow, which measure how fast they can blow out air.” Not only is this solving a serious problem for 25 million people, this technology has the potential to carry-over into other markets, think: athletic performance. Watch for this to blow up.

A rising tide lifts all smartwatches. Pebble, the first smartwatch company, says its sales have doubled since the Apple Watch launched last year. Pebble thinks it’s because the two companies are competing for different markets. Pebble says it wants to be the mass market smartwatch, where Apple sees itself as the Rolex or Tag Heuer of smartwatches. More likely, people are warming up to the idea of smartwatches and it doesn’t hurt having one of the biggest brands in the world validating the idea.

This 9V battery will bridge the gap between your dumb-home appliances and your smart ones. 

CAREER

How to sell in articles. Here’s a quick sales-copy lesson you can apply to any kind of writing you do. It’s called “dual readership path,” a term coined by Dan Kennedy. The idea is that there are two types of readers: skimmers and full-length readers. Most of us are a combination of the two. Millennials, especially, lean more toward skimming, while our parents are full-length readers. In any case, if you apply this strategy correctly, it won’t matter who your audience is, you’ll have all your bases covered. Frank Kern explains this little trick here.

The lure of luxury might not be what you think. Why do people buy luxury goods? For status? For fear of being cast out of the tribe? Most evolutionary psychologists would have you believe this — and there is a good case to be made. However, not everyone agrees. Some people believe the allure of luxury goods is simply because they’re beautiful. Ha! But wait, there could be some validity to this. Virginia Postrel, author of the 2003 book The Substance of Style, says “people pet Armani clothes because the fabrics feel so good. Those clothes attract us as visual, tactile creatures, not because they are ‘rich in meaning’ but because they are rich in pleasure.” Whether you’re buying this or not, there is one interesting point that’s been made, “few people will ever own a Rolex or a Vermeer, but we are all sensitive to the value of history, and most of us possess at least some things that we wouldn’t trade for perfect duplicates,” says anthropologist Clifford Geertz. Read more of the lure of luxury.

LIFESTYLE

New study reveals: Karaoke at your work Xmas party is a good idea.

More structure = freedom. ETR editor Craig Ballantyne has been preaching this for years. It’s even the idea driving his new book coming out soon. What’s neat is this idea can be applied to supercharging your creative process. If this sounds crazy, bear with me. Austin-based author and artist Sunni Brown shows us how she leverages the power of her daily routine to sustain her creativity. Notice how Brown doesn’t commit to writing every day, or at a certain time, or even writing a set number of pages. Instead, she commits to the process of being a creative every single day. Similar to how Cal Newport commits to the process of planning his week. He doesn’t worry about executing his plan perfectly. He worries about staying committed to the process of planning.

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#NOWYOUKNOW

Today is Bring In Your Parents day #BIYP sponsored by LinkedIn.

Suddenly, explaining how to text to your Dad doesn’t seem so hard.

+ This London-startup CEO explains how she steals top talent from Google, Facebook, Bloomberg, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Hint: She asks to join your Network.

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