Recent quotes:

Is This the End of Couple's Therapy?

Incredibly, one in four couples cite temperature control as a primary source of arguments, with 42 percent of men admitting to having turned down the temperature without consulting their partner. “By the time we reach our late 20s, we’ve already figured out for the most part who we are and what we are or are not willing to put up with, which in turn makes it harder to adjust to others’ likes and dislikes and preferences," says Vijayeta Sinh, a New York City-based clinical psychologist. That’s why the best home technologies are the ones that do the compromising for you. “The value of a connected home is you have the simple convenience of, ‘Hey, I don't want to be thinking about how I'm taking care of my building. I want my building to take better care of me,’” says Ben Bixby, general manager of energy and safety at Nest, which recently launched the Nest Thermostat E, an affordable and easy-to-use smart thermostat, which requires zero programming, thanks to its “simple schedule,” blends into the background of your home, and can pay for itself—and then some—with energy savings.* Adds Bixby, “You're not an expert in knowing what temperature it should be when—let the thermostat figure that out!”

Confessions of an Instagram Influencer - Bloomberg

That night, I signed up for a service recommended to me by Socialyte called Instagress. It’s one of several bots that, for a fee, will take the hard work out of attracting followers on Instagram. For $10 every 30 days, Instagress would zip around the service on my behalf, liking and commenting on any post that contained hashtags I specified. (I also provided the bot a list of hashtags to avoid, to minimize the chances I would like pornography or spam.) I also wrote several dozen canned comments—including “Wow!” “Pretty awesome,” “This is everything,” and, naturally, “[Clapping Hands emoji]”—which the bot deployed more or less at random. In a typical day, I (or “I”) would leave 900 likes and 240 comments. By the end of the month, I liked 28,503 posts and commented 7,171 times.

Confessions of a social media exec on influencer marketing: 'We threw too much money at them' - Digiday

Social team is a bunch of millennials, so we’ll often find someone we like and we’ll throw it into a database with keywords. But usually it’s a CEO or CMO or whoever saying, “Oh, my kid likes this guy.” At this major car brand I worked for, we paid $300,000 for a few photographs because the CEO’s kid liked someone.

Time Editors Are "Happier" Without Wall Between Church and State

“They are more excited about it because no longer are we asking ourselves the question are we violating church and state, whatever that was. We are now asking ourselves the question are we violating our trust with our consumers?  We’re never going to do that,” Mr. Ripp said in a video interview with Bloomberg’s Stephanie Ruhle. The interview comes less than two weeks after Time Inc. separated from Time Warner and became its own publicly traded company. Instead of worrying about upholding the divide between church and state, Time editors can worry about maintaining consumer’s trust in Time brands while simultaneously using it to work with advertisers. “They’re not stupid. They are running a business. They know that. They’ve been firing hundreds of people over the last couple of years, following a different path,” Mr. Ripp said, of his editors.

Kirkus paid reviews

When we talk again, in October, Brunette has “big exciting news”—a favorable write-up from Kirkus Reviews, the venerable book-reviewing publication and website whose blessing is considered essential by many authors and publishers. “A mystery with an unusual twist and quirky settings; an enjoyable surprise for fans of the genre,” the review trills. She had to pay for it, though. Kirkus has an “indie team” that will review a self-published work for $425 ($575 for express service), with no guarantee of the outcome. “To me, it’s worth it,” Brunette says. “You want that validation.” She plans to use the review in ads on the Kirkus website and magazine.

This Sunlit Bushwick Loft Houses Family Art and Custom Woodworking

"When we first walked in, we both had the same instantaneous reaction," Venezia says. "It was exactly what we were looking for: open space, lots of sunlight, and in our price range. It was too good to be true."
As dozens of Fluence success stories on the site’s blog will testify, there is also the chance that influencers will Tweet, Facebook, or write a blog post about the song you submit. Just this week, for example, an “indie music curator” named Robert Duffy supported “emerging indie artist group” CMBSTN—a quartet of Swedish alt-rockers with a penchant for slick production, emotive vocals and lipstick—by selecting it as an “emerging candy pick” on a website called Bitcandy. Truth be told, the write-up included the disclaimer that the writer had found it on Fluence[…] if CMBSTN hadn’t posted their music to Fluence, would Robert Duffy have ever found out about CMBSTN?
We analysed social sharing data for 689 BuzzFeed native ads from 51 companies, and found the average native ad receives: 263 Facebook shares 36 Tweets 7 Google +1s 44 Pins 2 LinkedIn shares
Where this goes is more tools for advertisers, who Schaaf says provide most of the incoming revenue for Imgur. Commercial posts selling a product are banned from the site, though users are encouraged to post original content like cartoons that could get them traffic back to their own websites or businesses. Brands, however, can buy time, typically 24-hour or 48-hour slots, to promote an image on the Imgur homepage and in users’ streams, Imgur’s version of native advertising used across media sites today. Imgur has offered native ads for a year now but hopes interest will go up with access to the data to see how those ads perform in later referrals or re-posts across the Web.
No, they bought this space in a shameless attempt to force their Mega Huge Football Ad — and smooth, delicious Newcastle Brown Ale — down your throats. They also "bought" me — an in-house copywriter — because actual Deadspin writers can't accept money from advertisers (not that I'm personally cashing Newcastle's checks but you know, whatever). As someone being paid to write this, I have to say that it's the greatest ad ever, mostly because Newcastle asked me to use those exact words. Is it the greatest ad I've ever been paid to call the greatest ad ever? Yes.
Onion has its Onion Labs, a serious branded content team that creates Onion-like parodies for brands. And The Huffington Post recently launched its HuffPost Partner Studio, an in-house creative agency for brands to produce sponsored content tailored to the HuffPost audience and environment. And now, Condé Nast's Wired is officially unveiling a new unit called Amplifi; its mandate is to create content for brands that's highly tailored to the Wired reader while labeled as promotional. So far, it’s churned out a crowd-sourced tablet magazine for Cisco and a custom blog for Marriott on travel for geeks. A mosaic-like print ad for Fiat that's running in the September issue also was the product of Amplifi.