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:

• Not a ‘trend’ at this point, but ‘making things’ continues to permeate – from store concepts facilitating it through 3D printing, to agencies making ‘invention’ part of their culture (and job descriptions)
• How to interpret and apply the data we have access to – from Amazon making a side business out of selling predictive shopping data, to ‘dark social’ data, and startups using Big Data
• The GIF, particularly well celebrated this week

Discussions Shaping Strategy, Creativity & Innovation  

• Dark Social: We Have the Whole History of the Web Wrong
• Does the Device Matter? On innovation changing from the device to the interactions between them)
• Redbull Stratos Shatters Records, and Traditional Notions of Marketing
• Nobody “Goes Online” Anymore…because they’re most often connected (perception vs. reality)
• Amazon’s Next Big Business Is Selling You (the value of Amazon’s customer data)
• Cognitive Dissonance in Product Development: Falling In Love With the Struggle
• What Marketers Are Getting Wrong About Loyalty
• When Your Fans Hack Your Brand, Praise Them
• You Are What You Consume (On brands asking themselves, who do you want your customers to become?)
• How to Plant Ideas In Someone’s Mind
• New Product Narcissism. Case in Point: Blackberries Now So Embarrassing People are Hiding Them Under iPads

Notable Ideas: New Products, Platforms and Projects 

• How to Get Your Startup Acquired in Six Months Or Less
• What’s In a Name?
• Google and Samsung’s New Chromebook
• Making Things at Story: Story’s Latest Concept Store Combines Shopping with Machining
• Gifctrl.com
• Moving the Still: A GIF Festival
• 11 Winners of Fast Company’s Innovation By Design Awards
• 10 Startups Leading the Way in Big Data
• LarkLife (what Nike Fuelband should be)
• Snapchat: This Text Image Will Self-Destruct
• DIY.Org

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

• Unlock the 007 in You: You have 70 seconds!
• Square’s Jack Dorsey: Let’s Reconsider Our “Users”
• The Videos from Google’s Zeitgeist Event
• Where Google Ventures Is Searching Now
• Ragu: Charlie Bit Me, the Story Behind the Finger
• BabyCakes Gets An App
• Meet the 10 Most Followed Companies on Instagram
• Newsweek to Stop Print Edition (going fully digital)
• Maxipad Brand Goes for Brilliant Response to Facebook Rant
• Nike Ends Contract with Lance Armstrong
• Brad Pitt is the First Man to Front Chanel No 5

Digital & Social Media News and Resources

• Mobile Apps, Verticalization May Be Killing Google’s Golden Goose (user behavior moving to mobile apps, vertical search)
• A First-Ever Glimpse Inside Google’s Data Centers
• Blue is the Most Popular Color on the Web
• The Immersive Web and Design Writing
• 5 Lessons from the Second Second Screen Debate
• PayPal Is Not a Mobile Wallet Company
• Twitter Attracts People With “Highest Cognitive Abilities”
• Are Welcome Ads the New Popups?
• Foodspotting Redesigns to Emphasize Discovery