What You Need to Know Today: October 26
Good afternoon, Early Risers!
Here’s what you need to know
TECH
The perfect password formula is easy to remember. A friend confided to me that she was afraid to log out of her Instagram account, because she didn’t remember her password to log back in. Ha! While this may sound ridiculous, the anxiety of forgetting passwords is real. Why do you think LastPass and 1Password are thriving? But, even having to only remember one secure password can be a struggle. Who likes typing out a bunch of letters both upper-case and lower-case, switching to a numbers keyboard (if you’re on mobile), and then switching to a special symbols keyboard? A 10-letter password that should take 3 seconds to type, takes you 60 seconds to type out — which is why most people’s one password is terribly easy to crack. The good news is that researchers have discovered the perfect password formula and it’s surprisingly easy to remember. Check this out.
+ If you’re really paranoid, try this 18th century invention to prevent hacking.
If you stream, they will come. Yahoo made history on Sunday when they streamed the first-ever live NFL game — Bills-Jaguars. The game attracted 33.6 million viewers. This is huge for Yahoo. “Sunday’s audience was almost twice the size of the average audience (7.9 million) that TBS attracted for last week’s NLCS between the Chicago Cubs and New York Mets,” reports Yahoo’s sports staff. Full details.
What’s the perfect note-taking app? (Asking for a friend) Do you know someone who’s on a never-ending quest to find the perfect note-taking app? Whenever a new app launches on the Google Play store or the Apple store, they’re first in line to sign up or buy this cure-all solution to their organizational woes. If you ever wanted to make a quick buck, this is a good industry to tap into. In fact, one company that was really good at selling this dream (because that’s what it is) was Evernote. But like all good dreams, they have to end sometime. Evernote is struggling — here is what the experts say went wrong.
CAREER
This $365 foam roller hurts so good. “‘Your price point is too low,’ she told him. ‘No one is going to take you seriously unless you charge more money.’ And so the price nearly doubled, to $365 — ‘a dollar a day for a year,’ Mr. Prudent likes to say.” (New York Times). I don’t know if there’s some weird connection between healthy-affluent people and masochism, but it sure seems that way. The rich will pay lots of money to feel pain. As long as it promises an increase in longevity and quality of life. Foam rolling is nothing new, but over the years it’s become more talked about. Recent research shows the many health benefits rolling out myofascial tissue in your body following exercise. Although, most of these quoted studies were performed with $25 foam rollers. And businessmen like Donald Fowler, have found that the rich and famous will pay a lot more for these torture instruments.
How Best Buy stopped sucking and started beating Wall Street’s expectations for 11 quarters in a row.
There are 35,156 professional evangelists on LinkedIn. How many do you think are associated with an actual religious congregation? Here are the most commonly used titles on LinkedIn.
LIFESTYLE
Adele knows how to say ‘No.’ On Friday, Adele pulled a Beyoncé when she surprise-released a new video on Instagram. The video — “Hello” — amassed over 23 million views within 24 hours — beating out Taylor Swift for the top spot. In the video, Adele is seen using a flip phone and pouring hot water into a teacup, and then dunking a tea bag — apparently a no-no, which has the Internet going cray. This got me thinking, how can someone this famous and talented disappear for so long, then come back and get this kind of praise? And what does Adele’s day-to-day look like? While I couldn’t find her daily routine per say, I did find an interview that sums up her attitude towards work-life balance. Here’s my favorite line in response to the pressure of looking fit, Adele: ‘You can’t go to America and be s***; you could have an amazing figure and they won’t buy it. I could wear a bin liner and they’d still like me.’ Adele is clearly confident in her ability, but she also has something else going for her. She’s mastered how to say no and it’s part of why she can produce such quality work. Full interview.
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#NOWYOUKNOW
This is the greatest advertising opportunity since the invention of cigarettes.
“Advertising is based on one thing… Happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of the road that screams, with reassurance, that whatever you’re doing… it’s okay. You are okay.” — Donald Draper, Mad Men. The World Health Organization is announcing today that processed meat will be on the list of substances most likely to cause cancer. While I don’t advocate eating processed meats, for this reason exactly, the effect this news will have on farmers and the meat industry will be huge. Imagine seeing warning labels on bacon packs like cigarettes. The scary thing is this news will most likely carry-over to red meat as well. There will be a resurgence of health “experts” telling you red meat is bad for you — when in fact, how you cook red meat is more the problem. This will bring a huge opportunity for advertisers in the meat industry. Just like how Draper sold Lucky Strike here, I imagine we’ll see similar ad campaigns for bacon, hamburgers, and lunch meat. Burgers will no longer be “flame-grilled,” they’ll be “steamed” (but a much sexier word will be used).
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