Once almost ubiquitous across the internet, websites are increasingly shunning the Facebook button over privacy concerns.
Facebook’s button used to appear on websites large and small, providing a fast and easy way for people to log in to a site using their Facebook credentials. As consumers have grown more concerned with protecting their privacy, social media login buttons are a growing casualty.
“We really just looked at how many people were choosing to use their social media identity to sign in, and that just has shifted over time,” Jen Felch, Dell’s chief digital and chief information officer, told CNBC. “One thing that we see across the industry is more and more security risks or account takeovers, whether that’s Instagram or Facebook or whatever it might be, and I just think we’re observing people making a decision to isolate that social media account versus having other connections to it.”
Dell isn’t alone in removing the Facebook button. Best Buy, Ford, Match, Nike, Patagonia, Pottery Barn, and Twitch have all removed the option from their websites.
The disappearing Facebook button is just the latest evidence that consumers are finally valuing their privacy and interested in taking greater control over it.
Direct to consumer brands are doing incredible numbers on Shopify, says Shopify COO Harley Finkelstein. He says that Kylie Jenner has generated almost a billion dollars in sales on the platform and many other influencers such as Kanye West, Drake, and most recently Tom Brady are also doing very well.
“Even if you go beyond just Kylie, you look at companies like Bombas and Allbirds and Tommy John and Fashion Nova, these are brands that didn’t exist five or ten years ago and they’re absolutely doing incredible numbers on Shopify with no slowing down in mind,” says Finklestein. “Shopify was built to help anyone that has an idea start a great business and sell to a global audience.”
Harley Finkelstein, COO of Shopify, talks about the incredible numbers DTC brands are doing on Shopify, the huge success of Shopify Capital, and their quick acceptance of cannabis stores in Canada and potentially the rest of the world, in an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC:
DTC Brands Doing Incredible Numbers on Shopify
We’re really happy with how we ended the year and certainly, the quarter was great and we’re really excited about our future. We’ve been at this now for almost 14 years. We’ve grown to 820,000 merchants up from 600,000 merchants a year ago. We have a big top of funnel with brand new entrepreneurs getting started on Shopify for the very first time. We also have some very large brands like the big CPGs and some big direct to consumer (DTC) companies all using Shopify to scale their businesses. We’ve got a really great business model and we’re having a lot of fun.
It’s amazing. I think the Kylie story ($1 billion in sales) was surprising to a lot of people, not for us because we see so many stories like that all the time. Whether it’s Kanye West launching his Yeezy store on Shopify or Drake’s store or Tom Brady’s new store, we see all of these major brands and huge influencers using Shopify to create authentic products and sell it to the audience. I always sort of think back to if DTC and direct-to-consumer were around when Michael Jordan was creating the Jordan brand with Nike I think Nike would be a supplier and Michael Jordan would be the brand. He would own the entirety of his business as opposed to getting a licensing fee.
We’re really excited about this. But even if you go beyond just Kylie, you look at companies like Bombas and Allbirds and Tommy John and Fashion Nova, these are brands that didn’t exist five or ten years ago and they’re absolutely doing incredible numbers on Shopify with no slowing down in mind. Shopify was built to help anyone that has an idea start a great business and sell to a global audience. We really do bend the learning curve to make it really easy to get started.
Shopify Helping Democratize the Entire Business Process
The ones that succeed, not all of them do, but the ones that do succeed they grow really large with us and over time we want to provide them with more services and more solutions. For example, we launched Shopify Payments a couple of years ago. We went to the payments companies and negotiated rates on their behalf. We launched Shopify Shipping and went to the shipping company and negotiated shipping costs on their behalf. We always are trying to find economies of scale to help democratize the entire business process for these small businesses.
More recently we realized that a lot of these small businesses also need capital. Because we have so much information on them we’re able to make really quick and very effective underwriting decisions so we were able to go and offer them capital cash advances. We’ve given out hundreds of millions of dollars of cash advances to a lot of these small businesses who if it wasn’t for Shopify would not be able to get this money on their own.
Entrepreneurs Want to Own Their Audience
Etsy fundamentally is a marketplace. Etsy is a place where someone who makes a product can go to find an audience. But our feeling is that you know for an entrepreneur they don’t always want to rent the audience. They want to own the audience. They want to have a direct relationship with their customers. They want to own the entire to profit margin. They want to be able to sell and have long-term relations with the people that are buying their products.
So companies like Etsy do a really good job of curating a bunch of products and renting those customers to those makers. We think the marketplaces are really great but we think ultimately makers and entrepreneurs and merchants want to have a direct relationship with the people buying their products. One of the things that is not well known about Shopify but one way to think about what we do is really this retail operating system. Merchants can start a store with us very easily and they can build a beautiful online store but they can also cross-sell to different marketplaces like eBay or Amazon.
The idea is that it feeds all feeds back in one centralized back office which is Shopify. That’s where they can run the entirety of their business. Really the idea is let’s become the most important piece of software they use on a daily basis. The first thing they open every morning, the last thing they close every night. So obviously marketplace will play a role there but ultimately merchants want to find customers wherever those customers exist and more and more they want to sell direct to those customers.
Shopify Facilitating Cannabis Sales in Canada
The reason we started with Canada was there was clarity in Canada. The Canadian government, the legislature, they were very clear with how they were going to roll out the commercialization and the legalization of cannabis sales on the consumer side. We felt it was really important for us to act quickly and effectively to not only win as much of the Canadian market as we possibly could but also to show the rest of the world as they begin to think about cannabis sales that we are the first phone call that they should be making.
Whether it’s the province of Ontario or British Columbia or most of the largest licensed producers like Canopy in Canada, Shopify is what’s powering those retail sales. We think that we can do a great job helping other countries and other regions do the same thing.
Enterprise marketing legend Seth Godin says that the value of a brand is measured by how much extra you will pay above the substitute. He says that if Nike opened a hotel everybody would know what it would be like because they have a distinct brand. On the other hand, he says, if Hyatt or some other big hotel chains came out with sneakers we would have no clue what they would be like because they don’t have brands.
Let’s talk about the difference between a logo and a brand. Companies spend way too much time on their logo, just like people on YouTube spend way too much time on their hair… I’m told. If Nike opened a hotel I think we would be able to guess pretty accurately what it would be like. If Hyatt came out with sneakers we’d have no clue because Hyatt doesn’t have a brand, they have a logo. If I swapped the signs on a hotel at that price point you couldn’t tell. If you were a Marriott, if you were a Hilton, Hyatt, the hallway, the room, I don’t know where I am. No brand.
What it means to have a brand is you’ve made a promise to people, they have expectations, it’s a shorthand, what should I expect the next time? If that is distinct you’ve earned something. If it’s not distinct, let’s admit you make a commodity and you’re trying to charge just a little bit extra for peace of mind. The problem that Hyatt and Hilton and Marriott and the rest have is sort by price. If I go online now to find a hotel it’s really simple, sort by price. Why would I pay $200 extra to go a block away? I don’t.
What’s the Value of a Brand
What’s the value of a brand? The value of a brand is how much extra am I paying above the substitute. If I’m not paying extra you don’t have a brand. When we think about what brands ought to do to move forward, the most important thing is to not worry about your slogan, your spokesperson, they’re wrapping. Its to worry about the substance, work that matters for people who care. Find the people who care, the smallest viable group you can live with, and figure out how to give them work that matters.
There are hotels, these new chains of mini-boutique hotels, that charge double what a Hyatt might charge, for less. But it’s only less by the Hyatt measure. It’s way more by the measure of someone who cares about with the people in the lobby look like or who cares about how hip it feels to walk into the bar. They’re investing not in… oh you get a room with three power outlets. They’re investing in throwing a party in a place where you also can sleep while you’re on the road. Those hotels have a brand and those hotels are some that some people pay extra for but almost no one in the scheme of things.
Nike has created an amazing store in New York City that truly integrates the digital experience with physical retail. The worlds of physical and digital are not really separated for consumers the way we may have thought says Heidi O’Neil, the President Nike Direct. Clearly, brick and mortar retail is not dead, it’s just changing and Nike is showing the world how it can be done.
Heidi O’Neil, President of Nike Direct and Sean Madden, Senior Director of Product at Nike Direct were interviewed about Nike’s New NYC technologically enhanced flagship store by Katherine Schwab of Fast Company. You can watch the full video below:
Physical and Digital Together Create an Incredible Consumer Experience
“It’s interesting with all of the medium crests around the death of retail, what we found, at least with our Nike consumers, is over 80 percent of consumers actually want a physical experience as part of their shopping experience,” says Heidi O’Neil, President of Nike Direct. “The worlds of physical and digital are not really separated for consumers the way we may have thought about it when we were thinking about the death of retail. In fact, they can really support each other to make an incredible consumer experience.”
Get Every Item on a Mannequin Head-To-Toe Digitally
“When you come in you’ll be welcome to Nike New York,” explained Sean Madden, Senior Director of Product, Nike Direct. “On the smartphone screen is what we call Retail Home. We found based on a lot of research that consumers really love mannequins, but they get really frustrated when they can’t find the product that’s on the mannequin. Is it in your size? Is it in your color?
“We’ve built a system where the consumer can simply scan a QR code and they’ll get every item that a mannequin is dressed in from head-to-toe digitally,” said Madden. “We’ve also enabled consumers to build a virtual Try-On List. They can then choose their size and have it sent right to their fitting room.”
Smart Fitting Rooms Offer Lighting Options
“Not only will the product will be waiting for you in the fitting room we’ve also introduced the ability for you to customize the look with lighting so you can see how the product looks on you and will perform in different lighting conditions,” he said. “We want consumers to understand how the product will look in different conditions, especially the New Yorker who is going from their house to sport to work to life and they want a product that can flex with them. They also take a lot of selfies in fitting rooms so good light and an interesting room really helps with that.”
Data Powers the New Nike Speed Shop
“We use data to inform the assortment with New Yorkers favorites in the Speed Shop,” said O’Neil. “Then what we’re also able to do from a data perspective is we’re able to take all the selling information and all the data from what’s happening in the five other floors of the store to have a trendy now experience in the Speed Shop. So as a New Yorker you don’t have to spend half the day here, a couple hours there, you can just go and say I’m getting the absolute best of this store curated for me and refreshed in the day, in the hour.”
According to Re/code, Apple stores across the country have begun to pull items from their shelves that could possibly compete with the Apple Watch, which is set to launch next month.
Both the Jawbone Up band and the Nike + FuelBand are no longer carried in Apple’s retail outlets.
There are other explanations for the bands’ disappearance apart from Apple’s calculations, but there’s no doubt that the Apple Watch has a lot to do with it. As far as the Nike FuelBand is concerned, Nike has stopped production – mostly to focus on software, including the Nike+ Fuel app for iOS (and the new Nike app you’ll see on the Apple Watch). Jawbone is currently working on its new band, so the one Apple yanked is old news by now.
Fitbit, probably the most recognized fitness band brand, was pulled from Apple Stores a while ago due to friction over HealthKit integration. Mio’s heart monitoring band is now only available online.
Re/code has this about Mio:
Liz Dickinson, chief executive and founder of Mio, said Apple notified her a few months ago that the Mio would be removed from the retail stores, though the company did not cite the Apple Watch as the reason.
“They said they brought in a new executive in the marketing area who wanted to rework branding for the stores, and to make the Apple brand more front and center and clean up and minimize the number of accessories,” Dickinson said.
Wouldn’t want you to get distracted when you head to the nearest Apple Store for your Apple Watch try-on, now would they?
Michael J. Fox, we’re counting on you. It’s 2015. This is the year it was all supposed to happen. We were supposed to have hoverboards. Not concept hoverboards; mass-produced, affordable, the real deal. Marty McFly went forward in time to 2015 and there were hoverboards.
Maybe the hoverboard thing will happen; maybe it won’t. But Nike is bound and determined to get one thing to market before the year is out. Another product inspired by the adventures of Michael J. Fox’s character from Back to the Future II is on the drawing board.
Power laces are coming, promises Nike. The shoe giant has been teasing a McFly-inspired shoe ever since early 2014. Called the Nike Air MAG, the shoe is designed to look like the ones McFly wore when he landed in 2015.
The trouble has been getting the power laces to do their thing without a huge battery pack to power them.
But Nike says that it is on the job and will definitely have the shoes out in 2015.
Several pairs of the shoes are slated to be auctioned off to benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. That organization is rumored to be seeking permission to merge with a smaller company, Michael Stern Parkinson’s Research Foundation. While Michael J. Fox’s Foundation is much larger, reports indicate that they see potential in the Stern organization in terms of developments toward actually finding a cure.
Michael J. Fox has battled with Parkinson’s disease since the early 1990s, and has been a vocal public face in the race for a cure since 1998.
It’s that time of year. Everybody’s putting out their best of 2014 lists. This time it’s YouTube with the top ads of the year.
These are ads that debuted on YouTube. They evaluated them based on things like watch time, likes, shares, video views, and audience retention metrics.
1. Nike Football: Winner Stays. ft. Ronaldo, Neymar Jr., Rooney, Ibrahimović, Iniesta & more
2. Nike Football: The Last Game ft. Ronaldo, Neymar Jr., Rooney, Zlatan, Iniesta & more
3. Budweiser Super Bowl XLVIII Commercial — “Puppy Love”
4. Always #LikeAGirl
5. Devil Baby Attack
6. Duracell: Trust Your Power – NFL’s Derrick Coleman, Seattle Seahawks
7. Galaxy Note 4 — Then And Now
8. P&G Thank You, Mom | Pick Them Back Up | Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games
9. Global Be(er) Responsible Day | “Friends Are Waiting” | Budweiser
10. Heineken | Routine Interruptions | The Payphone with Fred Armisen
“Thanks to the creativity of this year’s videos, people are spending more time watching videos from brands than ever before,” says YouTube’s Alyson Yaffe. “In fact, we watched more than 1 billion minutes of the top 10 ads this year alone. And while the top ads are nearly 50 percent longer this year compared to last—averaging around 3 minutes each—we stayed tuned longer, spending around 50 percent more time watching them.”
Nike has ditched Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson.
“Adrian Peterson is no longer a Nike athlete,” said a Nike spokesperson in a very brief statement.
Peterson’s Nike deal was already suspended, following the star’s indictment. In September, a grand jury indicted Peterson on felony charges of reckless injury to a child. Police accused Peterson of injuring his four-year-old son with a switch.
Earlier this week, Peterson pleaded no contest to one count of misdemeanor reckless assault. He’ll be fined $4,000, given 80 hours of community service to perform, and will be placed on probation. He’ll avoid jail time.
It looks like Nike was waiting for the whole this to be resolved before coming to a definite conclusion regarding Peterson’s future with the company. But now, will the case pretty much wrapped up, Nike is dropping the high-profile athlete.
Of course, the legal side of things is only part of Peterson’s troubles. His future in the NFL is now in the hands of commissioner Roger Goodell. Peterson, of course, wants to start playing again as soon as possible – but the NFL has already declined his request for immediate reinstatement.
At this point, whether or not Peterson sees the field this season is completely up in the air.
As for Nike, this is the second NFL athlete it has been forced to part ways with. Nike terminated a deal they had with former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice after that video emerged showing him knocking out his then-fiancee in an elevator.
The Nike+ running app tracks pace, distance, time, calories burned, and allows you to upload all that data online for everyone to see. It’s also the perfect tool for making running, an inherently boring and awful practice, moderately enjoyable.
Because come on, who doesn’t love drawing dicks on things? This is that, but on a much larger, and more impressive, scale.
That’s the artwork of Claire Wyckoff, who has her own Tumblr blog called Running Drawing. She’s found herself an recent internet star based on her phallic routes.
She’s no one-trick pony, either. Dicks aren’t her only forte…
When you manage to get the fans who paid to come see you to start booing you, then you have really accomplished something. Kanye West walked into a hall full of fans who had come to see Drake, but ended up seeing Kanye filling in. Still, the crowd at the Wireless Festival in London was all hyped to see the rapper.
But instead of treating his London fans to all his best right off the bat, West went into a 20-minute-long rant about fame, consumerism, and discrimination in the fashion industry.
You know, people be looking at me like I got a problem or something. Like I’m uncontrollable or something. Like I don’t do what I’m supposed to do. You know it’s like they want to have everybody so brainwashed. They want to control everybody, you know, rumors, lies, media, marketing. It’s like they want to steal you from you, and sell you back to you after they stole it. They want to make you feel like you less than who you really are…
Now believing in yourself is so, so, so wrong that the other side is so, so, so, so strong, they’re trying to beat down and demonize and dishumanize — I don’t know if that’s a word or not, but it’s now a word, cuz I said it’s a fucking word — and try to dishumanize people who believe in themselves…
And I’m telling you right now as I stand on this stage, all this shit that you heard me talking about, I’m gonna come and back all that shit up. You don’t know how hard it was to get the Nikes, that wasn’t my fault. They try to control y’all and try to control me. And when I was in my negotiations, they told me, “We don’t negotiate with celebrities.” That’s like a terrorist. They talk to you like it’s fucking terrorist.
You can watch the whole thing here, beginning at the 11:00 mark.
One person who attended the event said, “Kanye was laying into the ‘machine’ and ranting about the public’s perception of him. Hundreds of people left the park early because they were so bored of his long rant.”
One fan wrote to his friends: wrote: “If anyone is going to wireless tomorrow GET A REFUND! Kanye sings for 20 minutes then literally does a speech for 35 minutes!!”
I didn't realise that when I bought my wireless tickets I also signed up to be Kanye's councillor
Soccer cleats are easily the most intimidating footwear in sports. Not only do the spikes on the bottom remind me never to get drop kicked by a professional footballer, but the overall design is slick to a dangerous degree. Nike has just made the soccer cleat even more intimidating with its latest product.
This week, Nike introduced the world to the Mercurial Superfly IV – a new soccer cleat that the company promises will make soccer players faster on the field. It does this through two innovations. The first is a new weave that reduces the amount of material between the foot and the ball. Nike says this gives players more control of the ball when moving at fast speeds. The second is a full carbon plate attached to the bottom of the cleat which “helps players to more efficiently transmit power through the ground.” In other words, this is a badass shoe.
Nike goes on to say that the Mercurial Superfly IV will feel like a natural extension of the body for any player who puts it on:
“Players have told us that the Mercurial fits like no other boot,” said Phil McCartney, VP of Sport Performance Footwear. “It feels like an extension of the body because the Dynamic Fit Collar integrates the foot, the ankle and the lower leg. It removes distractions and allows the player to be quicker to the ball and quicker with the ball. This is the huge advantage of Flyknit: We can tune a boot to match a player’s attributes.”
McCartney later says that the Mercurial Superfly came about as more players demanded a better shoe for a more intense game. That’s what this latest soccer cleat is all about:
“We’ve delivered the boot for this new game because we know what a split second means. It can mean the difference between qualifying for the next round and elimination. It can mean the difference between being a champion and being a footnote,” said McCartney. “At Nike, we design boots to bring out the champion in all of our players. That drive and pursuit of perfection has led us to today and the Mercurial Superfly.”
After two years and twenty people, the new Jordan XX9 shoes have been revealed. Although you can look at pictures of the shoe and hear about the design online, Nike will not release it until September, right at the start of basketball season. You will also have to pay 225 dollars if you want a pair of your own.
To be fair, many were expecting a much higher price.
One of those was Jordan Zirm of STACK, who placed the price as high as 275 dollars. He did managed to predict a fall release date and “another radical design”.
As far is design is concerned, look no further than the designer of the shoe, Vice President of Creative Concepts Tinker Hatfield:
“In the past, we’ve drawn inspiration from myriad places—everything from fighter jets to motorcycles—and have ended up with some pretty fun designs along the way,” Hatfield was quoted on Nike’s website, This year, our inspiration and challenge to ourselves was to create the best performance basketball shoe ever—and I think the XX9 and the performance-woven upper pay that off.”
Not only built for “players who play at a high level and need to move quickly yet need stability,” Hatfield told USA Today that the shoe is also made for the general consumer, “This is part of the legacy of the Jordan line. Numerous times over the years, the shoes have not been like any other — over and over and over again. We’re really proud of this one. It’s the most advanced way to make a product I’ve ever seen. … It’s next-level for sure.”
Paralympian “Blade Runner” Oscar Pistorius, accused of the premeditated murder of of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, has put his Pretoria, South Africa mansion up for sale to help pay for his mounting legal fees. The house would nominally sell for up to $700 thousand, though its sordid history will likely drive the price way down.
Pistorius’ lawyer Brian Webber commented, “It has become necessary to sell Mr. Pistorius’ home in the Silver Woods Country Estate in Pretoria in order for him to raise the necessary funds to cover his increasing legal costs. This is due to the unexpected extension of the trial beyond the initial three-week period for which it was originally set down.”
Early in the morning on Valentine’s Day of last year, Pistorius shot and killed South African model Reeva Steenkamp, his girlfriend of three months, in one of the bathrooms of the house for sale. Pistorius admits that he’d shot Steenkamp, but insists that he’d thought she was an intruder. Prosecutors think otherwise, and seek to prove that the murder was premeditated.
Pistorius has repeatedly broken down in the courtroom, and at one point needed a bucket for vomiting:
http://youtu.be/xoG8D-mRt2A
Pistorius’ trial began on March 3, and was set to conclude in three weeks, though it will likely be ongoing, as prosecutors gather more evidence. Pistorius was earning roughly $500 thousand annually while running, though he hasn’t competed in two years, and sponsors Nike and Oakley dropped him.
Proceeds from the sale of the site of the murder, which overlooks a golf course, will be combined with the other assets of the accused. Pistorius also owns two other homes in Pretoria, worth roughly $300 thousand.
Pistorius hasn’t returned to the site of the shooting since the day it occurred, and the bathroom where the crime took place has since been gutted. Ampie Louw, the real estate agent handling the sale, commented, “If you look at the house, a valuation has been done, and given that it has four bedrooms and four en-suite bathrooms, it is an upmarket house that will cost a lot to build from scratch.”
Michael Jordan hasn’t been on the court in over ten years, but that doesn’t mean the former athlete has stopped making money. According to Forbes, the famous Chicago Bulls player made $90 million last year, making him the highest paid retired athlete. Among current athletes, Jordan still comes in second place, right behind Floyd Mayweather. And it’s all thanks to his trademark shoe, the Air Jordan, for making his bank account grow.
Last year, the Air Jordan earned Nike $2.25 billion in revenue (compared the LeBron James’ $300 million shoe line). Just this weekend the Air Jordan 10 “Powder Blue” sneaker went on sale; selling $35 million in its first day. Forbes says that Jordan’s $90 million is more than he’s ever made any year playing basketball – he peaked in 1997 at $80 million. Now, as one in every two basketball shoes sold in the US are Air Jordans, the Nike partnership with Jordan looks to only keep growing.
Forbes estimates that Jordan’s cut from Nike was around $75 million; the other $15 million come from his other endorsements with brands such as Gatorade, Hanes, Upper Deck, and his ownership of seven restaurants, a car dealership, and 80% of the Charlotte Bobcats.
Jordan began his career over three decades ago, after playing for the North Carolina Tarheels and gaining national attention with his game-winning 3-point shots. Immediately Nike saw his potential, and after Jordan was drafted to the Bulls, he signed a five-year contract with the brand worth half a million per year. In 1984, Michael hit the court in the first ever pair of Air Jordans – in a classic Bulls red and black. Twenty years later, the shoe brand is stronger than ever, and Michael still proves to be a dominant figure in the sports industry.
Gabriele Grunewald has been reinstated to represent Team USA at the upcoming track and field world championships in Poland. She’d been disqualified late Sunday after a competitor, Jordan Hasay, filed a protest alleging that Grunewald made more than incidental contact near the end of the USA Track and Field women’s 3000 meter championship. Now, after a chat with USATF head man Max Siegel, Hasay has withdrawn her protest and Grunewald is back on the team.
Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Not on your life.
Here’s the full story: The women’s 3000m race at this past weekend’s USATF indoor championships determined not only who had the national crown but also the two runners who would run the world championships, a major, biennial event that brings significant visibility for sponsors. In the last lap of Sunday’s race, Grunewald caught fire and ran away with the lead, crossing the line well ahead of second place finisher Shannon Rowbury. Sara Vaughn finished third and Hasay finished fourth.
So it seemed like Grunewald and Rowbury had punched their tickets to Poland. Not quite. A little while after that, Grunewald’s coach, Dennis Barker, was alerted to the fact that Alberto Salazar, Hasay’s coach at the Nike Oregon Project, was appealing to have Grunewald disqualified on the basis of interference (i.e., that she’d made contact with Hasay so as to slow her down). Salazar’s appeal was denied and Barker was told that the judges saw no more than incidental contact when Grunewald passed Hasay. Then Salazar appealed again. Once again he was denied and Barker breathed easy.
And then Nike stepped in. And then suddenly Grunewald wasn’t on the world championship team anymore.
Reports swirled that after Salazar’s second appeal was shot down, several Nike employees were seen crowding around the USATF judges. Then USATF claimed that “new video evidence” had come to light to prove that Grunewald did interfere with Hasay and was DQ’d. But they never produced that new evidence, and Eagle Eye, the company who filmed the event for television claimed not to have provided the judges with any new video material.
“I think it was coercion from Nike,” said Barker. The apparel manufacturer is reported to provide $10M of USATF’s $23M budget. Grunewald is sponsored by Brooks Running and runs for Team USA Minnesota. “It just seemed to me that Alberto [Salazar] sticking his head in there and talking to the committee while they were meeting and the other Nike people hovering around there, I think there was intimidation.”
On any account, the appearance of impropriety was enough to call down the wrath of posters on the letsrun.com forums, the unofficial home of track and field fandom. Most of the vitriol was targeted at Salazar and Nike, with some threatening to send any Nike gear they owned to Nike headquarters in Oregon in protest. Hasay, a generally well-liked figure in the running world, also took a few jabs. And it seems now that all the bad press (including reports of Salazar telling Grunewald’s husband to “go f— himself” when the two of them happened to share an elevator at the event), coupled with the apparent fact that the “new evidence” bit was a farce, forced Nike and USATF’s hand in the matter. The threat of hundreds of putrid running shoes showing up at HQ was too much.
If you have seen Back To The Future II, I am sure you are aware that by now, flying cars are not standard, hoverboards have not replaced skateboards, and we do not yet have a “Scenery Channel”; however, there is a technology evident in the Back To The Future II that will soon become reality, and that technology is having shoes with power laces, just like the shoes that Michael J. Fox’s character Marty McFly wore in the movie.
In a recent article by The Inquisitr, Nike designer Tinker Hatfield states that Nike will “release the use of the fictional Back To The Future II laces that every fan of the trilogy has always dreamed of.” During this year’s NBA All-Star Weekend, Hatfield attended the Jordan Brand Flight Lab and (according to SoleCollector) was asked about the release of self-lacing shoes. Hatfield’s reply to this question was “Are we gonna see power laces in 2015? To that, I say YES!”
According to FOX News, back in 2011, Nike released a shoe series called “Air Mag” for the Michael J. Fox Foundation For Parkinson’s Research. The “Air Mags” are an exact replica of the style of shoes worn by McFly in Back To The Future II, but without the power laces, and only 1,500 of the replica shoes were produced.
Troy DaVinci from Sneakerology published a review of the “Air Mag” shoes on YouTube:
Unfortunately, there has not been any official release from Nike about the release of self-lacing shoes; however, The Inquisitr states that the release of power-laced Air Mags could possibly be a future way to raise money for charity. Even though there has not been a release date for the Back To The Future II-inspired shoes, it is great to see this technology come to be a reality!
Defo gunna save up for the Marty Mcfly nike boots next year…
A factor that unites many Back to the Future fans is their desire to own some of the futuristic gadgets from the second movie. How many times have you heard people discuss how cool it would be to ride a hoverboard, or how much they’d kill to own a pair of Marty McFly’s shoes? Well as technology advances, so does the possibility of Back to the Future fans’ dreams coming true.
In 2011, Nike created a replica of Marty McFly’s shoes in Back to the Future II. Only 1,500 pairs of Nike MAG were created. Every pair was auctioned off for charity; all proceeds went to the Michael J. Fox Foundation to further Parkinson’s research. Film and shoe fans spent over 6 million dollars to own a pair of these extremely rare and cool sneakers. But as accurate as the shoes looked, they lacked one important feature: the self-tying power laces. In 2015, those laces will become a reality.
Nike designer Tinker Hatfield revealed to Sole Collector that they plan to release the power laces next year; right on track with the year Marty wore his Nike sneakers.
Hartfield didn’t offer any further details about the laces, such as if they’ll be available on their own, as part of a newer version of MAG, or an adjustment to the 2011 model. However they’re released, Back to the Future fans, sneaker lovers, film fans, and people who love to spend money will readily buy these laces.
Some Marty McFly fans took to Twitter to disclose their excitement about this upcoming shoe release.
They’re making Marty McFly Power Laces by 2015. Crisis adverted.
Nike Air Yeezy 2’s are officially here! Or at least they were for a brief moment.
It appears “Red October” has come in February this year, with the impromptu release of Kanye West‘s Nike Air Yeezy 2’s. The highly anticipated rare kicks were released on the Nike website on Saturday, Feb. 9 at 1:00 p.m.
Nike made the big announcement to avid sneakerheads via Twitter, posting that the trendy red sneaker was available for purchase. It definitely didn’t take long for the news to spread.
In a matter of minutes, the announcement had been re-tweeted more than 5,000 times. However, by the time the message had matriculated around the social media network, half of Nike’s stock was probably already sold.
According to Vibe Magazine, by 1:15 p.m., just 15 minutes after the announcement, the multinational shoe corporation had been wiped out! To be more precise, just 11 minutes after 1, Nike had sold out. As quickly as the announcement came, it was followed by yet another saying that the full stock of Air Yeezy 2’s had been sold.
While, some fans may have been quite upset by the quick sales, a number of eBay sellers have created a silver lining – or maybe not. Several eBay outlets have taken advantage of the popular sneaker’s supply shortage. However, the price gouging is astronomical. Spin Magazine reports that Air Yeezy 2 prices on eBay are ranging from a $10,000 Buy It Now auction price to a U.K. eBay auction price where the shoe is netted at a staggering £10 million, which equates to $16.4 million USD.
Although West’s relationship with Nike has been a bit turbulent with the rapper bashing Nike for his limited control where design creativity and marketing is concerned, it appears those problems have abated.
The Yeezus rapper later issued a brief statement of apology to Nike for his insults by showing gratitude for the launch of the Air Yeezy 2’s.
“I’m still gonna do music but I really do feel honored to have had the chance to blow Yeezy up with Nike and I really appreciate everything they did for me,” he said. “I’m not knocking them on the way out or burning no bridges, you know, I apologize for my frustration earlier. I just think it’s time. It’s go time. It’s turn up time.”
Nike announced a surprise shoe launch on Sunday via Twitter, and lucky followers were able to jump to their official site to snatch up the latest in footwear from Kanye West. So many followers, in fact, that the shoe sold out in about 11 minutes.
The Nike Air Yeezy 2 “Red October”, an all-red design with gold aglets on the tips of the shoelaces, has been the topic of much discussion recently after West announced he was leaving Nike to partner with Adidas due to a conflict over royalties.
“I asked them when the Yeezy “Red Octobers” are coming out,” West said in a radio interview. “I asked them, me Kanye West, asked Nike when’s it coming out. They said, ‘we’re not sure yet.’ They let me design two shoes over five years. And I’m happy I could design them, but they ain’t do me no favor because Eminem designed a shoe, Pharrell designed a shoe. I just designed the Yeezys. I turned up, because I was in fourth grade designing Jordans and I brought back that feeling. You ain’t never felt that way about a shoe, since the Jordans, the way people feel about the Yeezys. I put that feeling. The same feeling that I put in College Dropout, Graduation, 808s, I put that feeling in there.
“So then I start turning up in the BBC interview, so [Nike] said, ‘ok cool, we’re gonna give you a bigger sandbox to play in. We’re gonna give you this amount right here to design, and two collections a year, and 30 SKUs — that’s the amount of items that you have. Would that make you happy, Kanye?’ And I said, ‘well I need royalties.’ It’s not even like I have a joint venture. At least give me some royalties. Michael Jordan has 5%, that business is $2 billion. He makes a $100 million dollars a year off of 5% royalties. Nike told me, ‘we can’t give you royalties because you’re not a professional athlete.’ I told them, ‘I go to the Garden and go one on NO ONE. I’m a performance athlete.’ So the old me, without a daughter, would have taken the Nike deal because I just love Nikes so much. But the new me, with a daughter, takes the adidas deal because I have royalties and I have to provide for my family.”
West later said that he hadn’t ruled out working with Nike again and spoke about branching out from his true love, music.
“I’m still gonna do music but I really do feel honored to have had the chance to blow Yeezy up with Nike and I really appreciate everything they did for me,” he said. “I’m not knocking them on the way out or burning no bridges, you know, I apologize for my frustration earlier. I just think it’s time. It’s go time. It’s turn up time.”
It was thought that the Red October design was canceled, and some are wondering why Nike decided on a surprise release on a Sunday, an odd day for a shoe drop. Fans were disappointed to learn at Christmastime last year that Footlocker wouldn’t be selling the shoe as they had originally promised.
From the East coast to the West coast, fights ensued at various store locations throughout the U.S. over the new Air Jordan 11 Gamma Blue sneakers, as crowds wrestled and punched each other in corner-bending lines.
One of the brawls took place in Weberstown Mall, in Stockton Calif., where a video shows several men punching each other inside the sneaker store the Finish Line. The video doesn’t show what actually sparked the scuffle, but right away you can see several individual fights occurring simultaneously.
One guy, who appears to be a teenager, is seen being pummeled by another gentlemen in an extremely brutal and ruthless manner, while other fighters are being tackled by someone who looks to be a security guard or a member of the staff.
Across the country in the Bronx, N.Y., two people were seen fighting after standing in long lines outside a neighborhood Foot Locker, as some people in the crowd recorded the melee but never tried to break it up. Soon after, cops showed up with mace in hand, spraying the rowdy pair and trying to restore order.
And in Dallas, punches were thrown at the Southwest Center Mall after one group tried to cut in front of another, just to get a better chance of scoring the $185 tennis shoes. Shortly after, police were called to secure the crowd and they remained until the doors were finally opened later that morning.
It seems every year this time legions of sneaker lovers await the latest additions to the Air Jordan series, as Nike does its very best to get all of the Christmas money it can. And for those who are curious why someone would put up with such a hectic environment for a pair of sneakers, one girl said it has everything to do with bragging rights.
“I mean, technically it’s not [worth it].” she said to News 12 in New York. “But for bragging rights, it is. It is, it’s worth it for bragging rights.” Go figure.
With sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Gear now surprisingly good, it appears that the smart watch segment just might be the growth market tech manufacturers have been hoping for. Though Samsung and Sony are now the leaders in the high end of the market, several players are already tackling the smart watch from a different angle – fitness.
Nike in particular has been developing its Nike+ fitness apps and hardware for years. The athletic wear company already markets two different types of fitness-related smart watches, the Nike+ Sportwatch and the Nike+ Fuelband SE. According to a DigiTimes report, Nike now has a 30% share of the sports equipment market worldwide, putting it in a position to compete with tech companies in the wearable computing market.
That same report holds that Nike is already preparing its refreshed smart watch lineup. DigiTimes’ unnamed “sources in Taiwan’s supply chain” are cited as saying Nike will release a brand new smart watch (not a Fuelband or Sportwatch) sometime in the first half of 2014. The company is reportedly already performing trial production of its new smart watch.
Smart watch and other wearable computing device shipments are expected to increase rapidly in the coming years. DigiTimes’ own research arm predicts that over 24 million smart watches will ship in the year 2016. With clothing and tech this year’s most popular sales items during the Black Friday weekend, the coming merger of these two product segments could create the next huge growth market for both tech and clothing manufacturers.
