We’re back with our weekly recap of the interesting and inspiring, with a particular eye for what shifts and ideas brands should be tracking, evaluating and acting on. This is a collection of some standout business strategy, brand-building and digital media stories catching our attention.

Discussions Shaping Strategy, Creativity & Innovation 

• Four Steps to Breakthrough Ideas
• The Emotional Cycle of Digital Interactivity
• Brands: Platforms Need Great Content On a Regular Basis
• Why Marketers Should Care About Transmedia (might care more if we lost the name)
• Understanding the Technology Hype Cycle
• The Absurdity of a Year Plan (on responsiveness and nimbleness in marketing)
• Being Real Builds Trust (for brands and employees alike – mind your language)
• Use Big Data To Predict Customers’ Behaviors
• Your Cell Phone Is Destroying Your Relationships
• A Critic’s Manifesto
• IDC Finds Patterns in ‘Showrooming’ Behaviors
• How Millennials Are Changing Food As We Know It
• Strategies from Psychology for Post-Work Recovery

Notable Ideas: New Products, Platforms and Projects 

• An Important Message from Shepard Fairey (on Fair Use and Artists’ Freedom)
• eBay Acquires SVPPLY
• A History of New York in 50 Objects
• How Google Builds Its Maps. And What It Means for the Future of Everything.
• IKEA’s New Catalog: Less Pine, More Pixels (trading photography for 3D renderings)
• Made By Many: We Are Five Years Old. Here Is What We Learnt  (on knowing what you want to be, agility, leaving room to be wrong, and other lessons)
• As Uber Comes to NYC, Its Legality Is Questioned
• The Way We Ate: A Century of Great Cooking, Year by Year, Month by Month, One Recipe at a Time
• FaceDeals: Facial Recognition-Activated Deals
• Glossybox (another subscription model – this time for beauty + cosmetics from around the world)
• Will the 2014 World Cup’s First Kick Come From a Mind-Controlled Robotic Leg?
• Meet the Amazon Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Paperwhite
• 10 (Techy) Travel Products for Every Closet Geek
• 10 Everyday Technologies That Are Now Dying

Brands, Companies and Entities of Note (some more obvious than others)

• Amazon Changed Reading. Now It Could Change Writing.
• Apple Hints at iPhone 5 Debut
• The Evolution of New York Fashion Week
• Fashion’s Night Out: A Digital Guide
• L2′s Digital IQ Index: Specialty Retail Report (who’s doing it well)
• Revlon Counts on ‘Selling Hope’ to Make Up For Its Small Size
• How Tony Hsieh Pivoted Zappos Into a $1.2 Billion Amazon Acquisition 
• Left Alone By Its Owner, Reddit Soars
• Nissan Innovation Garage
• McDonald’s To Open First Vegetarian Outlet
• The Most Social Commercials and Brands on TV

Digital & Social Media News and Resources

• 5 Really Important Shifts (Not Trends) In Media and Technology
• UX Trends and the Problem with Stealing Bad Ideas
• The State of Ecommerce Checkout Design 2012
• 10 Brands Using Responsive Design
• 100 Tech and Social Media Accounts You Should Follow Right Now
• Facebook To Roll Out Phone Number, E-Mail Ad Targeting
• The Best and Worst Brands on Pinterest, According to a Power User
• Piktochart (DIY Infographics)