Last month, Apple announced that the price of Apple Music would increase by a dollar for individual plans while Spotify’s CEO admitted it’s considering a similar move. Amazon must’ve sensed an opportunity here, because it’s now giving ad-free Amazon Music access to every Prime subscriber.

Previously, a Prime membership came with 2 million songs included for streaming — and the full 100 million-song catalog required an extra monthly payment. Now, however, you can listen to all the T-Swift or Harry Styles you want for the same price as two-day shipping.

There’s one catch: You can only play in shuffle mode. So, if you want the sequential album experience, feel free to give Jeff Bezos more money. Either way, it’s a pleasant surprise that for once in 2022, something costs less than it did yesterday.

Sound business: Pick a soundtrack for a productive office.

Acquaintances vs. friends: A surprise networking tip.

Pam & Tommy: All stakeholders need to be on board.

Every bar owner knows that customers need a reason to show up and a reason to stay. NFL Sunday Ticket, only on DIRECTV, gives them plenty of reasons: All out of market Sunday games, every week, all season long.

When your patrons make the trip to your bar, they expect football. Whether you’re blanketing a sports bar with wall-to-wall coverage — or just giving your favorite regulars the option to watch out-of-town games in a quieter tavern — here’s why NFL Sunday Ticket from DIRECTV is a must-have:

• 84% of bar and restaurant owners with NFL Sunday Ticket from DIRECTV agree that it creates a more lively atmosphere.
• 8 in 10 bar and restaurant owners with NFL Sunday Ticket from DIRECTV say it creates more loyal customers.
• 8 in 10 bar and restaurant owners with NFL Sunday Ticket from DIRECTV say it helps get customers to stick around longer — and that number goes up for sports bars.

That’s the magic of football. Without football, a bar is just a building. But with football — and with giving you the games that your patrons can’t get in their living rooms — your bar will be a place to show up and to stay.

With NFL SUNDAY TICKET and DIRECTV local channels (CBS, FOX, NBC). Out-of-market games only. Select Int’l games excluded.

(Source: Shutterstock)

We all know that music boosts our individual productivity, but can it do the same for an entire office? That’s the business case for TouchTunes, which offers a jukebox specifically for the workplace. CEO Ross Honey, a former executive at Microsoft — where he served as general manager of Xbox — believes the right soundtrack can build team spirit.

However, the modern audience has incredibly diverse tastes. Honey gave b. advice on how to select music in an inclusive, democratic manner.

b.: Why bring a jukebox experience into the workplace instead of everybody playing their own Spotify?

Honey: We know from our own office space — we have lots of jukeboxes here, as you might imagine, that … being able to select that music and play that music together as a group connected us in a way that just everyone listening to their own music with their earphones on couldn’t. “Hey, who chose this song?” “Well, that was me.” “I love that!” “Oh, gosh, Colleen’s playing another Britney Spears song.” “We know that was her; she’s always playing Britney.”

It just gets that dialogue and that communication going that brings people together in a really authentic way. Music is a universal language of connection. … The focus now is so much on connection, because just getting your work done, you can do it at home quite often.

b.: A finance office, a tech startup, and a fulfillment center are very different environments. Are some music genres better for specific tasks, such as creative work, physical labor, or spreadsheets?

Honey: Honestly, it is hard to categorize that by type of workplace. It really goes to who are the employees and what do they enjoy? … We have [a] location that said, “Hey, we want the catalog to be nothing but EDM. That’s all we wanna hear.” Sure, no problem.

The best music for specific workplaces or tasks is a function of the team … Unlike background music that no one can change, if the team is listening to the music they choose, then mood and productivity are likely to increase regardless of genre.

b.: Not all employees have the same taste. If some workers love a song or genre and others can’t stand it, how can that be resolved?

Honey: It is true that there is a lot of diversity in musical tastes — and what we find is that teams connect over figuring out what music they all like, as opposed to one person controlling the music. That might be an employee asking, “What does everyone want to hear?” Or it might be, “Hey, can we listen to something other than country for a while?”

If an office or team agree on what they absolutely don’t want to listen to, they can filter that out. Overall, we haven’t heard this as an issue from our customers.

b.: Is there a risk that music can distract workers instead of driving them?

Honey: The research we’ve seen is that music playing is overall conducive to productivity, morale, and energy level. It just brings a space alive that motivates and engages. And it makes sense. I mean, music has been with us since [humanity] began and it clearly strikes a chord in us. 

(Source: Shutterstock)

Dr. Eden King is a Rice University professor of psychology and former president of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

Who is more likely to help you get a job: your best friend or your neighbor’s cousin’s dentist?

It’s surprising, but career opportunities more often come from people with whom we’re less connected.

Social scientists have been interested in these weak ties for decades. A classic study from the 1960s asked people to mail a letter to a random person in another city through a personal acquaintance who might happen to know them. This led to the “six degrees of separation” phenomenon — or as the researchers called it, “the small world problem.”

New research published in the journal Science suggests that the small world isn’t a problem but an opportunity. Across five years and 20 million users, LinkedIn tested its “People You May Know” algorithm. Sometimes users saw people who were very close to them (based on mutual connections and interactions); other times they saw people less familiar to them.

Users tended to get new jobs at companies where they had weaker ties. The fewer mutual connections that two newly linked users had, the more likely they were to end up sharing an employer one year later.

All that talk about the value of networking is actually supported by science! Making connections, not just relying on friends and family, can be helpful in your career — even if it’s with your neighbor’s cousin’s dentist.

(Source: Hulu)

Pam & Tommy, the biopic miniseries about Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s marriage — and the leaked personal tape that publicly defined it — is a gut-wrenching look behind celebrity in the 1990s. It also takes us back to the dawn of internet commerce.

Unfortunately, Rand Gauthier (Seth Rogen) saw the early promise of viral digital marketing but lacked the decency to get permission from Anderson (Lily James) and Lee (Sebastian Stan). Instead, he stole their intimate recording and sold it online for a quick profit. Because Lee failed to pay him for electrical contracting work, Gauthier felt that karma justified the action.

Ironically, karma catches up with Gauthier. By not bothering to secure Anderson and Lee’s sign-off, he has no legal recourse when bootleggers copy and sell the stolen tape. (Also, Gauthier’s partner takes off with their cash.)

The lesson? Make sure all stakeholders, especially rights holders, are 

on board with your project before launch. It’s just a good business practice — and good karma.

(Source: Lost Lantern)

Independent bottlers Adam Polonski and Nora Ganley-Roper of Lost Lantern Whiskey search the U.S. for the finest barrels of craft whiskey around. Their unique blend, American Vatted Malt Edition, combines the single malts of six distilleries spanning six different states from Washington to Massachusetts. At 105 proof, it’s an ideal post-dinner nightcap — and a bottled cross-country tour.

Written by Carlos Rosario Gonzalez and Ali Saleh. Comic by John McNamee.