http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21721634-how-it-shaping-up-data-giving-rise-new-economy
Most important, the value of data is increasing. Facebook and Google initially used the data they collected from users to target advertising better. But in recent years they have discovered that data can be turned into any number of artificial-intelligence (AI) or “cognitive” services, some of which will generate new sources of revenue. These services include translation, visual recognition and assessing someone’s personality by sifting through their writings—all of which can be sold to other firms to use in their own products.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/03/08/madridification-barcelona-barca-went-mes-que-un-club-just-another/
Madrid discovered this. Now Barcelona are discovering it too. Some seasons they will win everything. Others they will win nothing. But as long as the club is run sensibly, even their years of failure will constitute relative success. Here again, the United model is instructive. On the pitch, it has been a pretty wretched few years: a teetering spiral of decline, degradation and David Moyes. Yet on the balance sheet, they have still managed to grow their revenue for 12 straight years in a row, Champions League or no Champions League. If this is failure, then every club in the world would love a piece of it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2017/03/06/hovis-hollywood-ridley-scott-britains-ad-men-reinvented-blockbuster/
“We were considered to be somewhat bubble gum because we’d come from a commercial world and I was sensitive to that,” he says. “Ridley got clobbered too because his work was thought to be so dreadfully slick visually by critics of the time. What they didn’t realise was that what they were looking at was the greatest cinematic visual stylist of his age. I was affected by the criticsim and therefore I didn’t want to do commercials. Ridley had no such worries. He used to say “Oh, f___ them. Ask ’em how much money they make!”
