Spotify and Apple are putting on a show

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Happy Friday, folks. If you haven’t already seen Spotify’s yearly reminder that it knows your music taste better than you know your music taste… well, we’re sorry we just ruined your last chance to have a productive Friday afternoon. Today: 

• Streaming services are really putting on a show
• The adult babysitting biz is starting to grow
• Female farmers are in the know

Have a great weekend.

Spotify announced its first music awards show… then Apple followed suit

In late November, Spotify announced it’s hosting its very own music awards for the first time. The Spotify Awards will go down on March 5 in Mexico City, the company’s biggest market, and winners will be based solely on user-generated streaming data.

Apple got wind of this and said, nuh-uh! If you’re having music awards, we’re also going to do our own music awards, like, tomorrow. 

So they summoned Billie Eilish, Lizzo, and Lil Nas X to the Death Star…

For a Wednesday evening performance, that is.

Billie Eilish’s Album of the Year and Lil Nas X’s Song of the Year wins were based on Apple’s streaming data. The other winners — Billie Eilish for Global Artist of the Year, Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas for Songwriter of the Year, and Lizzo for Breakthrough Artist of the Year — were crowned by Apple Music’s editorial team.

Apple awarded the winners’ trophies made from, in Apple’s words, “the same chips which power the devices that put the world’s music at your fingertips.” Not-so-covert code for, suck it, Spotify!

This is the latest gimmick in the Apple vs. Spotify streaming wars…

Apple and Spotify are in a race to gain market share in the US and beyond. Globally, Spotify has more than 100m paid subscribers, compared to Apple’s roughly 60m. 

But the WSJ reported in April that Apple surpassed Spotify in paid US subscriptions and that Apple Music is growing slightly faster than Spotify.

Procrastinating hard on something? Hire a ‘babysitter’ to hold you accountable

Is there something you’ve been meaning to do for, well, like, ever? Would you pay someone to make sure you get it done? 

Meet Focused. As Wired reported this week, the Bay Area startup charges $40 for a 2 ½ hour “deep work” session. It starts with a short consultation where you tell them what you want to accomplish, followed by a brief meditation. You then get after it in their “distraction-free” space, and they check in on you every 20 minutes to make sure you’re on task.

The vibe is less like answering to a drill sergeant…

… and more like telling your goals to a supportive friend and asking her to hold you accountable. The founders’ take is that we likely can’t do everything we want to do alone and that having another human around to hold our hand (and hide our phone) helps.

The founders, Nodira Khoussainova and Lee Granas, launched Focused several months ago and now hold a handful of sessions each week in their SF and Oakland spaces. 

The pair met at Burning Man, which kinda explains the pre-work meditation practice.

And this idea isn’t completely novel, either

Focusmate offers similar services, and Get-it-Done Group and Go Fucking Do It are in the same vein, but those are all virtual. The allure of Focused seems to be the human aspect — actually going to a place to get your sh*t done and communicating face-to-face with a supportive human.

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In Alaska, women are about as likely as men to take up farming

Enter the Alaskan femme… farmtales? As Modern Farmer reports, a niche crop and good funding opportunities have made farming an increasingly attractive career path for women. 

Everything’s coming up… err… well, not roses

About 36% of US farmers are women. But in Alaska, women make up almost half the number of farmers — and that number has risen rapidly. Between 2012 and 2017, the number of women working on farms shot up by 56%. 

An increased demand for cut peonies is one factor contributing to the female farmer boom. In Alaska, these showy blossoms — typically a spring flower in the continental US — grow through late summer. In the 2000s — before the craze caught on — there weren’t many farms devoted to peonies. Now, there are at least 128.

Farming can be a family-friendly enterprise, and that also entices some women to turn to agrarian careers. Martha Lojewski started Mount McKinley Peonies so she could work while caring for her young children. Lojewski and her husband went on to start a peony co-op. The majority of the farms involved are owned by women or families.

There’s money for new female-fronted farms

Meanwhile, organizations like the USDA Farm Service agency set aside grant and loan money for women and minorities starting new farms. With these funding opportunities available, it behooves farming families to organize their businesses so a woman is the principal producer.

Shower Thoughts

1. Lamps in video games use real electricity.
2. There are two types of car owners. The first is upset when it rains because the rain is getting their car dirty. The second is happy when it rains because the rain is getting their car clean.
3. It’s risky to buy soda right after an earthquake.
4. During a nuclear explosion, there is a certain distance of the radius where all the frozen supermarket pizzas are cooked to perfection.
5. No matter how hard you try, you can’t technically predict your next thought, because if you do, you’re already thinking it.
6. via Reddit

The holidays are here, so we want to hear your best-ive and most festive shower thoughts. Share ‘em with us here. How did you like today’s email?

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