Each week, TP1 shares the top five articles that caught our attention. Here are your must-reads, published here and abroad, for the week of August 31.
Uber
In the left corner, the taxi industry. In the right, Uber. Who will come out on top? And can there really be only one victor? After all, isn’t technology the big winner? Journalist Jonathan Kay presents an in-depth report on the situation in Canada and weighs the pros and cons of both business models.
→ Read it on The Walrus
Nothing’s too big for Pocket
How many employees does it take to support 20 million users who have saved over 2 billion articles and videos? The answer: Pocket, the app that allows users to manage a list of articles to read later, does it all with only 20 employees!
→ Read it on First Round Review
Burning Man and urban design
The Burning Man festival, which sees thousands of people come together every year in Black Rock, Nevada to let their creativity run wild, is renowned the world over. Today, having left its humble beginnings behind in the sand and dust, the festival has become so big that accommodating the roughly 70,000 festival-goers in the desert requires a genuine urban design effort. Event founder Larry Harvey tells us more.
→ Read it on Dezeen
No Diggity by Blackstreet is a classic (and we’ve got the numbers to prove it)
While some songs are one-day wonders, others are classics that never get old. Billboard charts do a fine job of ranking new songs by their popularity, but how can we tell which of yesterday’s songs are truly timeless? Fortunately for us, polygraph.co editor Matthew Daniels has gone over the data from Spotify and come up with some surprising conclusions!
→ Read it on Polygraph
Good interpersonal skills pay big dividends!
Even if you’re a pro in your field, it might not be enough to land a high-paying job. New research shows that such social skills as communication and the ability to work in a team are now more important than ever.
→ Read it on Five Thirty Eight
In Your Earphones :
How to Build a World-Class Network in Record Time. Drawing on his 2007 South by Southwest (SXSW) presentation, Tim Feriss, entrepreneur, investor and the author behind best-seller The 4-Hour Workweek, suggests tips and techniques for building your network of contacts efficiently and strategically.
→ Listen to it on The Tim Ferriss Show
Reading recommendation of the week :
Amanita Virosa is the second novel from author and copywriter Alexandre Soublière. Here’s an excerpt from the back cover, just to give you a taste of a world where the walls are coming down and a hacker-genius is left to wonder, “What is a good person?”.
Hyaena. C’est le nom que Winchester Olivier et Samuel Colt ont donné à leur entreprise, qui fonctionne en marge de la société. Leur spécialité : vendre les images, photos, vidéos des personnes qui font fantasmer leurs clients. Pour arriver à leurs fins, ils sont prêts à tout. La loi de la jungle. À l’âge d’Internet, l’image n’est-elle pas – impérissable, éternelle – plus précieuse encore que les corps? N’est-elle pas, une fois archivée dans le cyberespace, plus forte que la mort?
Entre Win et Sam, leurs clients riches et puissants, et leurs proies, dont la jeune et belle Elsa, chanteuse qui a connu un succès viral sur le web, se dessine un étrange ballet évoquant les scènes de chasse et de carnage qu’apprécient tant les amateurs de documentaires animaliers. Tout à la fois roman d’anticipation, roman d’action, roman d’amour, Amanita virosa est une œuvre riche et ambitieuse.
Recommended by Jan-Nicolas Vanderveken, TP1 President.
Happy reading!
– The TP1 team
Image from businessinsider.com
