#60 - 📅 One year without social networks and Amazon's latest experiment
Greg Taieb · · 6 min read
Hello,
Already 60 issues of this newsletter, shall we have a party for the 100th?
Ok but only if you continue to give me your opinion after each newsletter. Well, another well-stocked menu this week with a new game even more contagious than the Omicron variant 🦠.
On the program:
- 📅 A year without social networks: the results
- 🛒 Amazon launches its futuristic store
- 🤔 How a little genius hacked Wordle, the most popular game of the moment
- 🎧 Airpods are good for your health !
📅 One year without social networks: the assessment
…no, it's not me who is going to share with you feedback on a social media diet.
First of all because I would probably be incapable of it (even if I have increasingly responsible consumption) then because it is partly my job to follow what is happening there.
But we are not going to lie to each other, it is by cutting off Netflix and social networks that I have been able to share this newsletter with you for 60 issues.
Whatever it is, I still really wanted to share with you this article by Alexandre Lewis who has completely cut himself off from social networks for all the year 2021. This freelance copywriterwas nevertheless quite dependent on social networks to distribute his work and find new clients. However, he wanted to make a clean break because the networks had become the ideal escape as soon as he stumbled on a complicated task with ultimately less concentration and a lot of wasted time.
Does that mean anything to you?
I'm not going to spoil the article for you but not only was he more productive, produced better quality work but he saw a boom in his income. He certainly missed some opportunities and did not benefit from the contacts that social networks offer, but there was a real before/after.
A super interesting, nuanced experience from which I think we can all learn something.
And you abuse the networks? How do you take care of yourself? Don't hesitate to give me your tips in the comments.
Alexander Lewis
🛒 Amazon launches its futuristic store
It's always interesting to see how Amazon, the e-commerce giant that has forced stores and supermarkets to reinvent themselves, likes to spread its wings to the point of launching stores physical.
Latest example, the future launch of its Amazon Style fashion stores within a few months.
So of course this is not the first offline escapade of Jeff Bezos' firm. Previously there were bookstores, food with Whole Food and more recently the cashless store Amazon Go.
This time the target is the large clothing store in which Amazon will try to offer an enriched experience.
In the first store Amazon Style, you will not find only one copy of each item of clothing on the shelf. Then simply scan to see the sizes and colors available. You make your selection and everything is sent directly to the checkout or to the fitting room.
Besides, if you wish, you can continue your shopping directly from the cabin using the touch screens. A salesperson will come and drop off your selection without you having to leave the cabin.
Then you can of course pay with the Amazon app.
As often, Amazon tries to enrich the in-store experience thanks to its expertise in online shopping. And I think they are right to push because far from thinking that physical and digital are opposed, they complement and improve each other. We saw it recently with click & collect but we can go much further as Amazon shows us.
🤔 How a little genius hacked Wordle the most popular game of the moment
At this time stage, I think it is impossible that you missed Wordle, the latest addictive word game that is flooding your social media feeds.
In terms of virality, I think we are at a higher incidence rate than the latest Covid variant, that's saying something.
If you have passed through the drops, Wordle is a collaborative game that offers you every day to discover a 5-letter word in 6 tries.
Each day a unique word and it's up to the one who finds it in a minimum of tries.
You play using a grid where you indicate the letters you want to use. When a letter is good but in the wrong place, it is in yellow and when it is well placed it is in green.
As every time something works, you have a developer who looks at the app (this was also the case last week with Elyze) and who takes great pleasure in looking for the flaw.
In this case, making reverse engineer to try to find the word of the day...the first time.
By examining the requests sent by the site when he entered an attempted word, Robert Reichel (a security engineer) realized that no request was sent to the server to compare the word entered with the correct answer.
He did infers that the word was therefore stored in the code of the page. More precisely, 2315 different words were stored and following an algorithm based on today's date, a word was selected as the word of the day each time the date changed.
Very clever even if my development skills don't allow me to deduce the next word 😅.
Okay and if you're a player, the good news is that there is a French version called SUTOM in reference to a famous TV game hosted by Thierry Beccaro.
Of course I would completely deny having given you this addictive link…
🎧 Airpods are good for your health!
Good Ok it's a bit stupid but I'm ready to do anything for you devour every paragraph of this newsletter.
More seriously, a recent study has just offered us one more opportunity to use a wired kit or directly Bluetooth headsets like those from Apple to make calls instead of having the smartphone stuck to the device.
ANFR (Agence Nationale des Frequencies) comes in fact from communicate the results of a study which demonstrates that the use of earbuds divides exposure to waves by 10 (the famous DAS).
It's just enormous !
Enough to seriously invest in headphones (wired or wireless)… but hey, who still spends hours on the phone anyway?
Amélie CHARNAY