Cover Story on Amazon... & Other Businessweek Pieces

Excellent cover story from the Oct 3 issue of Businessweek.

Amazon, the Company That Ate the World is written by Brad Stone and details the company's tablet entry, the Kindle Fire. The company as a whole has done a lot right over the years and early indications are that they've created a compelling offering.

Not quite as profound in terms of it's potential reach to consumers, but also from this issue of BW was a profile of New York City based drugstore Duane Reade. Written by Susan Berfeld, It's pretty interesting reading on a retail chain that previously could do no right and now seems to make the correct move with every step.

Finally, I found noteworthy the short piece How to Give the Perfect TED Talk by Sebastian Wernicke. TED is a fascinating concept and it was interesting reading about what types of things help make some TED talk speechs stand out over others.

Businessweek Pieces: Double Eagle Coin, HP, Apple, Salesforce & Rachel Ray

Some interesting pieces from the August 29 issue of Businessweek...

I find BW often has interesting features and with this edition being no exception, "Gold Coins: The Mystery of the Double Eagle" was written by Susan Berfield. The story looks at the exceedingly rare 1933 Double Eagle gold $20 coin and the layers of intrigue and drama surrounding it's collection.

As Berfield details, 500,000 of them were made, but then to have been destroyed prior to being issued. However, not all were... with what was billed as the only one remaining auctioned off for $6.8 million in 2002. Back to the whole intrigue and drama thing, another 10 coins then were discovered in 2004 to still exist. As might be expected, this led to a courtroom dispute that's still only sort of settled. Pretty fascinating read...

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In addition to this feature, there was a number of smaller stories from this issue that stood out...

- "Rachael Ray on Catching Her Big Break" on the now talk-show host and how she was discovered for television (and what she did leading up to that).

- "How Salesforce Tames Twitter for Big Business" on Social Media tools offered to clients by the company.

- "Is It Time for Hewlett-Packard to Go Back to the Garage?" featuring the sub-headline "Once an icon of stability, HP is in chaos under CEO Léo Apotheker."

- "Steve Jobs: ‘Unfortunately, That Day Has Come’" about Tim Cook taking over for the visionary CEO at Apple.

Businessweek Pieces: Transocean, Anheuser-Busch & Other Stuff

Handful of interesting stories from the last month of Businessweek.

In terms of feature writing, the issue that stood out was the July 4 edition with the exploding oil rig on the cover.



The lead story of "Transocean: No Apologies Over Gulf Oil Spill" painted a remarkable picture of a company focused on limiting their blame (and eventual liability) in the Deepwater Horizon fire and then Gulf Oil Spill. Good writing by Paul Barrett on the strategy taken by Transocean and it's crisis management firm (led by a former tabloid editor).

Another feature from this edition of Businessweek was "Fall of the House of Busch" by Susan Berfield. Pretty remarkable reading on the previously family-run Anheuser-Busch and it's ex-president (and current train wreck) August Busch IV.

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A bunch of other stories from this and other recent issues were notable in featuring interesting companies and technology...

- "Daniel Ek’s Spotify: Music’s Last Best Hope" on a recent entry to the US market for music delivery.

- "Pay as You Go with Smartphones" on current efforts to finally get something widely adopted in the field of mobile payments.

- "Turntable.fm: Where the DJ Is in the Next Cubicle" on a music service with a social component.

- "Can Jeff Weiner Realize LinkedIn’s Full Potential?"

- "Raves for Robert Brunner’s All-New Nook" on the Kindle competing eReader from Barnes & Noble.

- "Ford Steps on the Gas in Asia"

- "HP's Plan to Make TouchPad a Hit"