Shiny Objects -- No. 4

More  things big and small that have distracted me over the last week:

1. How to Think Like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos

This podcast interview with self-help guru Tim Ferriss is frequently insightful, but this conversation with X-Prize man Peter Diamandis is smart and inspiring throughout. Key comment was Diamandis encouraging smart people to stop developing new photo-sharing apps in pursuit of ideas that can change the world.

Side story: Something I learned: I once did business with Zip2, a company started by Elon Musk.

2. Top Ad Campaigns of the 21st Century

This is one of those items worth saving over the course of a week. Ad Age has settled on the top ad

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Shiny Objects -- No. 3

Here's some of the things that have distracted me over the last week:

1. Barrelhouse Brewing

I've written previously about Barrelhouse Brewing, a Paso Robles-based brewery that in its short life -- it's not yet 2 years old -- has shaken up the regional beer scene long dominated by Firestone Walker. I first tasted Barrelhouse at the Bakersfield Beer Festival and have enjoyed it in bottles since. But I visited the brewery -- not too far from Firestone -- for the first time Friday and was blown away by the excellence of its beers across the board. 

My four-beer sampler -- Blonde, Rye IPA, IPA and Stout -- was as consistently good as any brewery I can recall. My wife proclaimed the IPA and Stout the best beers she's ever tasted, and I'll admit they're at or near the top of my lists. We bought bottles of the IPA and Stout -- we had to chase the Stout down at Albertson's because Barrelhouse was sold out -- and are already planning a return visit. 

Take my word -- plan a visit of your own so you can later brag you knew about them before they got big.

2. Why Apple Pay may be DOA

 I’m thinking Ben Thompson has quickly become the most brilliant strategist in tech.

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Shiny Objects -- No. 2

Here are a few of the more interesting things that have distracted me this past week:

1. Buzz-Fueled Media Startups

Wired has an illuminating article on how digital news startups like Buzzfeed is reshaping how we deliver and consume news, moving from the concept of a traditional destination-centric news site to organic vehicles that use everyday people to deliver the content for them. Here’s a key graf:

"But the thing is, the media isn’t just competing with your little sister—it’s co-opting her, using her as a vector to spread its content. She is the new delivery mechanism. We don’t learn about the world from The New York Times, we learn about it from the Times stories that our family and friends share or that show up as push notifications four minutes before one from The Guardian does. Thirty percent of American adults get news from Facebook, according to the Pew Research Center, and more than half of Americans got news from a smartphone within the past week, according to the American Press Institute. And these metrics are just going up, up, up. The question for news publishers is no longer how to draw an audience to their sites, it’s how to implant themselves into their audience’s lives."

2. Pitch podcast: “The Clearmountain Pause”

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