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:

• The ad industry’s strong-suits have never been sincerity or a level-headed sense of purpose. But criticism around its sensationalist tendencies to sell sell services to clients (new trends, new platforms, new…everything) – and for losing real talent to other industries – was particularly pointed this week.
• Frustration around the polarity of data was also quite audible. We have too much clarity in some areas, not enough in others. We should be able to track and understand cross-platform behaviors and how they lead to a sale – but connecting these points isn’t clear for many companies (many assumptions/estimates, few trackable facts)
• Facebook’s quarterly results (and other news) indicates that social platforms are finally shifting gears and focusing on generating revenue – from Facebook and Twitter’s advertising models, product creation, and Pinterest’s direct contributions to commerce.

Discussions Shaping Strategy, Creativity & Innovation  

• The Future of Short-Attention-Span Theatre (our culture of narrative deprivation places more emphasis on the medium and less on the content)
• Ad Industry Lies: Year of Mobile (for 4th year in a row, and others)
• The Biggest Challenges Agencies Face
• 5 Maneuvers the Tech Biz Should Steal from Fashion Industry
• What Does Talent Look Like In An Age of Flux?
• In Mobile World, Tech Giants Scramble to Get Up to Speed (the importance of tracking users from their desktop computers to their phones and ultimately to the physical locations where they spend money)
• Four Trends Shaping Social Enterprises in 2013
• On the Need to Design (Client) Relationships
• Staying Ahead of Consumers (notes from a keynote)
• Six Types of Advertisements
• The Phobias of Creatives
• The Planner Survey Is Live

Notable Ideas: New Products, Platforms and Projects 

• 2012′s Brave Thinkers
• Earmarkd: A search engine algorithm driven by political perspective
• Maker’s Row: Factory Sourcing Made Easy
• A Secret Camera in Williamsburg Photographs Unsuspecting People on Street for Style Blog
• Skedj.com
• An App to Tell You If There Are Genetically Modified Ingredients In Your Food
• 3Desk (find quality freelancers near you)
• Mellow Mushroom: Follow Us and We’ll Follow You (physically stalk you)

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

• Amazon Keeps Analysts Guessing on Quarterly Results
• The Dark Side of Facebook’s Triumphant Day (an increasingly dull business model based on advertising)
• Why An Airline That Travelers Love Is Failing (Virgin Atlantic)
• Marketers Get Physically Abused for Social Media “BS” in Adobe Ad Campaign
• Eventbrite Isn’t Just Selling Tickets; It’s Building A New Kind of Social Platform
• The Secret Behind Pinterest’s Growth Was Marketing (and community building), Not Engineering, Says Silbermann
• With iPad Mini, Apple Switches from Offense to Defense
• McDonald’s to Launch ‘Angry Birds’ from Its Golden Arches in China
• MINI Creates a Mini Cooper that Can Be Driven On Water
• Obama’s Sponsored Content on Buzzfeed

Digital & Social Media News and Resources

• Windows 8 Launches
• Amazon’s Q3 Results Fall Short of Analyst Expectations
• Amazon Announces A Gigantic Loss On Its LivingSocial Investment
• Pinterest Tops Facebook In Driving eCommerce
• Twitter Now Has Over 2,000 Ways To Engage with Tweets
• Twitter Launches Gender Targeting for Advertisers
• 8 Social Media Numbers to Transform Your Business
• How Marketers Measure Content Marketing Success
• Understanding Tablet Use: A Multi-Method Exploration
• Average Teenager Has Never Met Quarter of Facebook Friends
• For Stock-Pickers, Life is Tweet (on social conversation impacting a company’s stock value)
• Windows 8: Microsoft May Have a Big Problem On Its Hands
• The Silicon Alley 100: The Coolest People in New York Tech This Year