THE STATE OF STREAMING:  I need to give full credit on this first article to Matt Sweeney, full-time Sales Dev Manager at Pandora and part time beat writer for the DG.  Matt found one of the best summations of today’s streaming ecosystem I’ve seen, on of all places, pitchfork.com.  Keep in mind as you’re reading this that they’re only talking about the subscription-based streaming platforms, so Spotify looks like the big dog, Pandora looks like an up-and-comer, and iHeart isn’t even featured.  But there’s still a wealth of solid data to chew on – especially in the back half of the article where they dissect Pros/Cons/What’s Next for the top 10 streamers.  This one’s pretty long so pack a lunch before you start reading – definitely worth the time though.  (link)

SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO YOUR SMARTPHONE:  You’ve seen the shopping stats from the first part of the holiday season, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  YoY in-store shopping is down slightly, but that’s more than made up for with +12% in online purchases.  Digging a little deeper inside the #s you’ll see one of the most important stats – that almost 40% of online purchases are now being done on a mobile device.  Simply put, mCommerce is becoming the most important part of eCommerce, just as eCommerce has become essential to overall Retail.  This morning AdWeek is featuring a useful infographic highlighting many of the most relevant mobile stats so far from this holiday season.  (link)

A NEW MODEL FOR INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP:  And finally today, respective business blogger Tom Goodwyn created this simple but interesting way to look at some of the biggest up and coming tech companies in their related fields.  The point is striking – the new way to become a leader in many industries is less about owning physical assets and more about connecting pre-existing dots better than your competitors.  Google is legendary at this.  Now some of these companies are doing the same thing and changing their respective games.

Have a great Monday guys!