How Data Made Me a Believer in New York Restaurant Grades

Reviews and grades can be nasty, capricious, biased, unscientific - and occasionally useful, to say nothing of accurate.

Business owners and executives may believe that the welter of regulations and self-appointed/annointed experts on the worthiness of their business are often destructive. And much of that can be true. But as the following article explains, with a strong process and tested metrics, they can work to the enterprise's advantage. JL

Kaiser Fung reports in the 538 blog:

Did one tiny mouse really close the trendy bakery?

Why Does Twitter Feel So Angry?

Depersonalization. We've heard all the arguments: hiding behind a screen gives people the impression that they are shielded from the consequences of their words. And without physically seeing the reaction of those they criticize, scorn, attack or belittle, they can ignore the possible hurt they cause which is harder to do when the person is right in front of you.

All of which may well be true.

But there may be another reason, as well. And equally powerful. Which is that the net has given us the ability to monitor our performance. So anyone whose self-worth is tied to the responses they generate, either in number or intensity (or probably both) can measure the impact of their posts or tweets. And as the following article explains, angry messages perform better. They deliver more respondents and with greater impact.

The net taking over our lives, especially since the advent of the smartphone and its enhancement of our mobility. In so doing, in addition to becoming an extension of our lives, it is, not surprisingly, shaping our personalities. JL

Chris Gayomali reports in Fast Company:

Some evidence shows that angry tweets actually perform better than any other kind of emotion,

Amazon Acquires US Postal Service. Just Kidding - For Now.

Damn, but Amazon is clever. Delivery is becoming one of the major fronts in the war between the dominant digital enterprises. It is the proverbial last link between the merchant and the consumer, so controlling or leveraging it not only provides financial benefits but insures yet another reason why once people are inside that web, it is just easier to stay there than to use someone else's service or build one's own. Which is what Amazon is now doing by using the postal service to drop off groceries and make Sunday deliveries of any kind.

One of the issues facing Amazon, Google, Facebook and all the others trying to keep their hands inside your wallet is cost. Delivery is expensive. That is why the seemingly silly talk about using drones is not as far-fetched as it may sound. And setting up your own network to compete with UPS, FedEx and others? Expensive. Difficult. Complicated. And did we say expensive?

So what if there were an existing network with all of the equipment, workers and know-how? And what if they were desperate to earn more revenue and profit? And what if politicians opposed to the very notion of government and who consider the postal service a prime example of government waste just aching for a private sector solution were suddenly quieted by a partnership with a successful company happy to make use of that public resource? Hmmm. Sounds too good to be true. But it happens to personify the relationship between Amazon and the US Postal Service.

It's actually genius. Amazon gets a fully built system. It negotiates an arrangement, presumably favorable to its own interests, and - here's where it really hurts competitors - all that compensation, regulation, capital investment, health care and other tangible costs are borne by the US taxpayer. Amazon just pays a fee, the Postal Service has to worry about all the other stuff - and it's not Amazon's responsibility whether the USPS makes a profit or not. Nice, huh?

Now, if you are a US taxpayer and this offends you, well, tough nuggies. Vote for a new Congressman, assuming you bother to vote anymore. Privatization of public resources in the name of efficiency is the new reality. Groceries, Sunday deliveries, whatever can be shoved down that pipeline and for which a charge can be levied will do just fine. Maybe Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos should just do us all a favor and buy the Postal Service.He's making so much money from just employing them it may not make sense. But he could probably cut a deal to offset the additional price of local sales taxes he's now being required to pay.  The betting here is that he has already run the numbers. JL

Edward Chan reports in Reuters:

Amazon declined to comment beyond saying in a statement: "We are always looking for new and innovative ways to deliver packages to customers."

Apps Over Apparel? Young Adults and Teens Put Tech Before Clothes

It used to be that you were what you wore. Now, the device on which you text may be a more important marker of status - and self-esteem.

As the fall season gets under way it is becoming apparent to merchants that money previously spent on new wardrobes may be going to an upgraded phone, a new pair of headphones or some other accoutrement that signals hipness in ways that shoes or shirts do not.

The implications for commerce are potentially momentous. Inventory levels, sales strategies and profit margins may all be subject to review as spending shifts from clothes to technology.

The good news is that wearable tech may be ideally suited (as it were...) to bridge this divide. JL

Elizabeth Harris and Rachel Abrams report in the New York Times:

“It’s definitely more exciting for a lot of teenagers to have a new phone that can do lots of cool stuff than clothing,”

Mobile Morass: US Is One of the Last Developed Countries Where It Can Still Take Days for Money To Show Up in Your Account

Mobile commerce is so much a part of our lives that most people rarely give the 'mechanics' of how funds get transferred much thought.

Phones are routinely used to pay for coffee or as a boarding pass representing hundreds of dollars.

But it turns out banks in the US are still wedded to a 40 year old system that slows the process down - and allows them to collect interest on the funds in the meantime. It may not sound like much until the aggregated sums are added up. But in the contemporary economy this sort of outdated toll collecting is no longer sustainable. US banks will fight a bitter rear-guard action to protect their waning franchise, but the potential profits from mobile finance are too huge - and the barriers to entry too easily surmountable by global enterprises - for this anomaly to last for long. JL

Rob Wile reports in Business Insider:

It’s becoming increasingly important because of the move to mobile payments, there’s more need for faster movement

Silicon Valley's Free Food Is Taxable Fringe Benefit Says IRS

Dude! Is nothing sacred? And pass that organic, free range ice cream, willya ?

Employers providing tasty, filling food at no cost to employees is as deeply ingrained a perk of working in The Valley as stock options. It lightens the mood to offset the high pressure, the all-nighters and sops up the excess alchohol during the free Friday afternoon beer blasts. It also keeps people in the office rather than wandering out to lunch and discovering it would be an awesome day to go kite-boarding
 
But everyone had better tuck in fast. The US Internal Revenue Service has determined that these free meals are a taxable fringe benefit. Which means they will no longer be quite as free as they used to be.

Now, this is hardly a surprise. In most segments of the economy, when an employer provides a perk, it's generally taxable. Sometimes the employer reimburses or 'grosses up' the employee's paycheck to cover the cost of the perk. Since free eats are an integral part of the culture at these firms - and their profit margins tend to be extraordinary - that seems reasonable. But even start-ups without revenues, let alone profits, do this and one can imagine VCs and other investors beginning to run the numbers. This might not spark a huge job transfer trend to say, banking or retail, but it might cause techies to begin to wonder if they are worth more than they are getting. Especially in light of the underpayment suit filed against Apple, Google et al. And that could be really disruptive, to say nothing of expensive.

So belly up while you can, you cordon bleu coders. As you ought to know better than anyone, nothing lasts forever. NB - in the interest of full disclosure, I have consumed for free, ice cream made from organic, free range cream in the cafeteria of one of the companies named in this article. And it was yummy. JL

Mark Maremont reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Free, employer-provided meals are viewed as a taxable fringe benefit.

How Much Should a Landlord Pay a Tenant to Move Out of an Apartment?

Since, as a society, we're in the process of trying to figure out how much our personal data is worth, we should move beyond the relatively simple question of how much Amazon may profit from knowing what you buy or Starbucks might benefit from knowing where and when you buy it. We can probably even get past debating the value of your image as an amateur dodge ball player. All of those questions are going to be settled eventually. With data.

So it makes sense to get ahead of the curve and start analyzing the net present value of future cash flows generated by your intangibles. Like your time. And the hassle you have to endure when you move. Because, as the following article explains, landlords who own rental apartments can make a lot more money if the apartment they are trying to rent is vacant.

The question, then, is what you should negotiate if he or she tries to get you to move. Especially if you live in one of those places like New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong or Rio where rents are steep and demand is high.

San Francisco is a locale that personifies the conflict between landlord and tenant. All that tech money sloshing through the economy is driving up rents and driving out long time renters. But as in most cities, renters have rights. And the question is what is a fair price for giving up those rights. The amount will vary city by city and probably by neighborhood. But in San Fran, where there dont appear to be any bad areas, how does $130,000 sound? Cuz that is the difference between what the landlord can make if you go versus if you stay. Hey, life's a negotiation - and there is a time value of money. JL

Rohin Dhar reports in Price Economics:

A rent-controlled apartment may be the most coveted asset in San Francisco. How much should a landlord be willing to pay a rent-controlled tenant to leave? According to our analysis, around $130,000.