Linkpile

• The co-founders of Twitter say it will change the world. They should remind people that it’s also fun: Farhood Manjoo says: “For Twitter’s own good … I wish its founders and acolytes would tone down the revolutionary language.” I argued for Twitter “as play,” here (and was smacked down in the comments).
• Welcome to our velvet prison, say the boys and girls from Apple.: Jack Shafer is the latest to question Apple’s penchant for control (which is not exactly a recent development). This useful column summarizes the thinking of leading critics. Marginal Utility makes related points here. Steven Johnson had a very considered take on this subject, here.
• The Acquisition of Taste: Paper: “Why set out on a chase for new satisfactions when my own are immediate and available without effort? The answer is that acquired tastes can be rewarding. Acquired taste jump-starts new satisfactions where I do not initially find them. Through acquired taste, I grow in my capacity to enjoy what the world has to offer.”
• Materialistic people liked less by peers than ‘experiential’ people: Study: “Not only will investing in material possessions make us less happy than investing in life experiences, but that it often makes us less popular among our peers as well.” Related: The well-worn assertion that experiences are better than objects gets a useful consideration at Marginal Utility.
• Marketers Placing More Products Into Plots: “Telemundo is signing licensing deals with manufacturers to develop products that can be integrated into programming like telenovelas.” These are products developed specifically to be sold through integration — created to be defictionalized. Richline Jewelry is first example, as I understand it.

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