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. In short, some key themes we saw concentrate this week:

• Bold moves from risk-taking brands like Red Bull with the #Stratos stunt (and world record)
• More on ‘maker’ and DIY culture fueling the next industrial revolution
• Related – how new e-commerce models are disrupting the traditional retail model through vertical integration, skipping the retailer entirely
• Content, content, content – can’t talk about marketing today without considering content

Discussions Shaping Strategy, Creativity & Innovation  

• Digital Disruption Is a Bigger Deal Than You Think (digital disruption must disrupt your process, depend on free tools and can disrupt non-digital companies)
• Communications Planning in 2013
• If You Want to Fail, Assume There Is An Audience (our battle in creative work is against indifference)
• Marketing’s Next 5 Years: How to Get from Here to There
• Trendwatching’s 12 Mini Trends to Run With Now
• Increase Sales by NOT Giving Customers Choices (the paradox of choice)
• Chris Anderson: Today’s Maker Movement is the New Industrial Revolution
• The Next Big eCommerce Wave: Vertically Integrated Commerce
• All Content is Marketing
• ‘Viral’ Isn’t a Four-Letter Word (let’s lose the nomenclature – and expectation – shall we?)
• The No. 1 Enemy of Creativity: Fear of Failure

Notable Ideas: New Products, Platforms and Projects 

• And the Least Business-Friendly (and innovation-friendly) States Are… (CA and NY)
• Apple, Microsoft, Google and Others Team Up to Support Standards Site Web Platform Docs
• Anatomy of a Redesign: How eBay Pieced Together a New eCommerce Machine
• Oyster Gets $3MM to Become the Spotify of Books
• What Comes After the Touchscreen (gesture control and more)
• The Patent, Used As A Sword
• Alex Bogusky Takes on Coca-Cola, Soda Companies
• HeTexted (helping women decode men’s texts – seriously??)

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

• #Firstworldproblems Ad Campaign Breaks New Ground
• Red Bull Stratos Worth Tens of Millions of Dollars in Global Exposure for the Global Brand
• Felix Baumgartner’s Headcam Captures Space Dive Freefall
• Hulu Struggles to Survive the Influence of Its Parent Companies
• Fab Remakes Itself As a Mobile-First Company
• Pringles Introduces Holiday-Flavored Potato Chips
• Wendy’s Unveils New Company Logo
• McDonald’s Test M-TV Channel at 700 Outlets
• JetBlue Election Protection 2012
• Peapod Launches 100 Virtual Grocery Stores in Commuter Rail Locations
• MetroCards Go On Sale with Ads on Both Sides (Gap)

Digital & Social Media News and Resources

• Official Twitter Account @Sweden Up for Sale on Craigslist
• Where Startups Go To Die
• Google, Apple, Berners-Lee and more team up to launch Web Platform Docs (site aims for standards around web development and HTML5)
• How to Stop Apple from Tracking You Again in iOS6
• How Instagram Caused Hipstamatic to Lose Focus and Gamble on Social
• Facebook Collections Lets Retailers Augment Posts With “Want/Collect” Buttons That Save Products To Pinteresque Profile Sections
• Where Social TV is Going Wrong, and How To Get It Right
• Typical Twitter User Is a Young Woman with an iPhone and 208 Followers
• Twitter Buys Vine, A Video Clip Company that Never Launched