Also: Why Marissa Mayer took the reins at Yahoo; Bravo’s Silicon Valley reality show unleashed.
Can Marissa Mayer really have it all? [NEW YORK MAGAZINE]
Mayer was bruised in that reshuffling. For about a dozen years she had presided over “search”—which is to say everything the user saw, felt, and experienced when navigating Google—but now she was shunted away from that core business and put in charge of “local”—maps, restaurant recommendations, and the like. This was arguably a demotion and at best a lateral move. And when Page overhauled the operating committee, or “OC,” Mayer’s reduced status was made both explicit and public.
Avoiding Facebook fate is Twitter CFO goal on way to IPO [BLOOMBERG]
Twitter will probably be the biggest consumer-Web company to make a market debut since Facebook, which has lost half its value since May 17, when it went public with too high a price set by its finance chief, David Ebersman, along with advisers. Rowghani will need to set Twitter’s price high enough to secure the funding Twitter needs without giving it a loftier valuation than it deserves.
Acer Iconia W510 preview: a week with a true Windows 8 PC [THE VERGE]
One thing really sticks out, though: there’s a giant learning curve with Windows 8. Understanding the gestures is complicated enough, since there are few cues that you have to swipe from the edge to do things. Deciphering the corresponding keyboard shortcuts is even worse — plenty of people will have trouble figuring out that Win + C brings out the Charms menu, and will have even more trouble remembering. The W510’s keyboard has a lot of function keys that help surface these menus, but it’s still not a perfect system. You can use the OS without knowing the shortcuts, but it’s a rough experience: you’ll spend a ton of time going to and from the Start Screen, launching and re-launching apps.
Advertising becomes Amazon’s newest low-price weapon [ADAGE]
Amazon isn’t exactly a newcomer to advertising, but until recently its ad efforts existed in a sort of extended beta: mainly as a way for Amazon’s suppliers to promote their products and, more recently, as a means to subsidize low Kindle prices. But now Amazon is going after agency business and brand advertising dollars as well. Last week it pulled the wraps off “Amazon Media Group,” a world of owned sites, devices and a third-party network that can use Amazon’s trove of purchase and browsing data.
Oh god, Bravo’s Silicon Valley show looks even worse than we thought ugh why help [GIZMODO]
The following is a collection of quotes from the teaser for the November 5 premiere, presented without comment, because really, what more can you say of people who are already parodies of themselves?
- “This is the moment we have to up our game more than ever.”
- “The future of the world is in our hands. And we’re not sitting back and letting us pass us by.”
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