The old way of doing things has often been a blueprint for dysfunction. In “The Geek Way,” Andrew McAfee proposes a radical rethink along the lines of companies like Amazon and Netflix.

Even our most vivid memories are less like photographs than sketches. Between the lines, imagination fills in much of what’s missing. “The Self Delusion,” by Gregory Berns.

“Is the Albanian army going to take over the world?” Old-media conglomerates famously dismissed Netflix when it was a fledgling startup. Time Warner, Blockbuster: Where are they now?

If every company is now a media company, does that mean it can be a platform company as well? Introducing an important new concept in storytelling: the narrative platform.

The digital transition was always going to be a messy one—look at the antitrust fights that followed the telephone during the analog era. “System Error,” by Rob Reich, Mehran Sahami and Jeremy Weinstein.

In turning a product into a platform, AMC transformed a TV show into a cultural phenomenon that invited fans to interact and co-create. Excerpted from “The Sea We Swim In.”

Tech companies have shown themselves to be increasingly cavalier with our personal data. Are we handing over too much information? “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,” by Shoshana Zuboff.

The story of VR, the most immersive communications technology since cinema, as told by two of its pioneers, Jeremy Bailenson of Stanford and the charismatic inventor Jaron Lanier.

The author was taken aback when he observed an AI program teach itself to play an arcade game—and play it much better than its human designers. Frank Rose reviews “Life 3.0,” by Max Tegmark of MIT.

Apple’s iPhone—a 21st-century American icon—could not exist without the labors of Bolivian miners and Chinese factory workers. “The One Device,” by Brian Merchant.

There’s a cultural bias in business and technology against any information that can’t be quantified. Frank Rose reviews “The Fuzzy and the Techie,” by Scott Hartley, and “Sensemaking,” by Christian Madsbjerg

We are at a hinge moment, when the relationship between people and their data will be defined for future generations. Frank Rose reviews a pair of books about consumer data and privacy: “Data for the People” by Andreas Weigend and “The Aisles Have Eyes” by Joseph Turow.

“Streaming, Sharing, Stealing: Big Data and the Future of Entertainment,” by Michael D. Smith and Rahul Telang.

Can smartphone connectivity and shared data solve the problems of crowded cities?

Clayton Christensen: The emperor needs a makeover.

Matt Ridley argues that the emergence of big ideas has little to do with top-down direction: “The Evolution of Everything,” by Matt Ridley.

How efforts to measure the impact of Internet content are actually undermining the medium.

The most successful advertising today convincingly takes on the qualities of real experience.

People think that just because the screen is small, the content should be too. That’s wrong.

Will Hollywood’s road to success be paved with ever-fewer, ever-more-expensive mega-movies?

Sometimes, cash bargains just aren’t acceptable.

Twitter and Facebook are just the latest incarnations of a tradition that dates back 2,000 years, Tom Standage says: “Writing on the Wall,” by Tom Standage.

First print, now cable? The road to obsolescence for TV programming.

Goodbye, passive viewing. Soon, every moviegoer will be a player.

Twitter, dopamine, and the evolutionary advantages of talking about oneself.

As the music industry finally discovered, the only way to stop piracy is to make everything available.

With MySpace, YouTube and blogs, the customer is always right and online.

Online gaming all night: Cool. Hour after hour downloading MP3s and porn: No problem. Thirty seconds so you can try to sell me something? Outta here. How the 18-34 male is reinventing advertising.

What happens when digital video recorders give viewers control of the TV schedule, the content, and the ads?

Along the paths and through the forests to nights in the châteaux.

Town meets country and ranch meets the sea.

A century ago, the American seaside resort was practically invented at Newport. Today, Rhode Island’s coastal towns are still defining themselves against its strange and alluring myth.

Forget the messiah with the guitar—the King was just a sweet mama’s boy whose vague dreams of stardom took him places he’d never dreamed of.

“Skin Tight: The Bizarre Story of Guess v. Jordache,” by Christopher Byron

“American Steel: Hot Metal Men and the Resurrection of the Rust Belt,” by Richard Preston

An accretion of Victoriana in Silicon Valley

10 Cadillacs buried nose-down in a Texas alfalfa field recollect an era of bluster and bravado.

What does “Einstein on the Beach” have to say to us in this post-Minimal era?

A spiky-haired extra-terrestrial stumbles forward into the future.

Public Image Ltd.: Are they committing rock’n’roll suicide, or are they simply boring?

“The Lords of Discipline,” by Pat Conroy

Rock & Roll Fights Back.

The leader of the Who has been questioning his role in the youth cult for most of this decade.

Last Friday afternoon, the avenger had some explaining to do.