Editor's note

Apple recently became the world’s first publicly traded trillion-dollar company. Does that mean it’s also the biggest? Not so fast, argues Jerry Davis, an expert on corporations at the University of Michigan. By traditional measures, such as revenue and number of employees, the iPhone maker is far from the biggest. And some of its nearest rivals for supersized valuations, such as Google and Facebook, fare even worse in those areas. Davis explains why it matters how we define size when it comes to today’s megacompanies.

Facebook, Spotify, Apple and YouTube have made efforts to kick right-wing extremist Alex Jones and his InfoWars-branded content off their sites and services. Twitter hasn’t. Media industry scholar Amanda Lotz from the University of Michigan says their decisions aren’t about free speech at all – but rather, what’s good for business.

Digital mapping apps can do a lot: give driving directions, track running routes or locate a restaurant. But most won’t give you any backstory on the places you go. That’s where “story maps” – interactive maps that combine narrative text, images and multimedia content – come in. Geographers Lauren Drakopulos and Shefali Juneja Lakhina explain how story maps harness people’s lived experiences to offer a richer, often hidden tale about the world.

Bryan Keogh

Economics + Business Editor

Top stories

Apple may seem a giant, but by some measures it’s not. Reuters/Lucas Jackson

Apple’s $1 trillion value doesn’t mean it’s the ‘biggest’ company

Jerry Davis, University of Michigan

Apple became the world's 'biggest' company because of its sky-high valuation. But in the past, the largest companies were known for more meaningful metrics such as revenue and number of employes.

What causes a media business to bar the door? yanin kongurai/Shutterstock.com

Profit, not free speech, governs media companies’ decisions on controversy

Amanda Lotz, University of Michigan

While they may talk about 'free speech,' businesses make decisions about their content based on a very different set of principles.

Story maps like this one can help policymakers better understand and respond to the needs of recently resettled refugees. S. Juneja

How ‘story maps’ redraw the world using people’s real-life experiences

Lauren Drakopulos, University of Washington; Shefali Juneja Lakhina, University of Wollongong

From resettling Syrian refugees to mitigating climate change in Ecuador, interactive 'story maps' harvest communities' stories to help policymakers and neighbors better understand complex problems.

Politics + Society

Environment + Energy

Education

  • How free should speech on campus be?

    Ana Mari Cauce, University of Washington; Clayton Rose, Bowdoin College; Connie Ledoux Book, Elon University

    On the one-year anniversary of the tragedy in Charlottesville, we asked the presidents of Bowdoin, Elon and the University of Washington whether free speech should be treated differently on campus.

Science + Technology

Arts + Culture

From our International Editions

Today’s quote

"We have learned more about the elephant brain in the last 10 years than ever before."

 

What elephants' unique brain structures suggest about their mental abilities

 

Bob Jacobs

Colorado College

Bob Jacobs