In this week’s edition of The Digital Life we examine three news stories important to user experience and our online lives: the Uber snafu over targeting critical journalists, the rising popularity of the e-book versus the tenacity of print, and the ongoing battle over net neutrality.

What role should user experience play in your organization? The answer to this question depends very much on who and what you are. Say you’re a bootstrapped startup founded by experts in technical issues and sales. You should try to get free advice and help, or maybe trade some equity for UX design, or perhaps even rely on your own intuition until you can raise some capital. On the other hand, a large software company such as Oracle or Microsoft should make user experience a key focus and investment for every business unit, and have a strong advocate and visionary in the C-suite. Between these extremes lie many different models for deploying user experience appropriately.

In this episode of The Digital Life, we discuss a user experience maturity model and how it relates to the current industry trend of taking UX in house.

In 1980, Bill Gates famously wanted a computer on every desk and in every home. Now perhaps Microsoft would like a fitness band on every wrist and all your health data in the cloud.

With the release of its Health platform and fitness band into the already crowded fray, Microsoft is(again)staking a claim to your quantified self data, along with competitors Apple and Google. The battle for your body’s health data has just begun.

On another front, the war for your living room is heating up, with Google Play now on Roku and the Amazon Fire TV stick premiering for a mere $19. Perhaps most significantly, even Walmart is getting in the game, with their Vudu spark streaming service.

In this episode of the Digital Life, we discuss the future of design for ecosystems — be it your body, your living room, your car or even your bathroom — as designers begin to consider how digital and physical products come together with the Internet of Things.

In this episode of The Digital Life, we talk about the state of the UX economy, and the implications it has for digital agencies.

Like wildfire, word of the demise of UX agencies is spreading through the community. Sparked by the acquisition of Adaptive Path, the closing of Smart Design in San Francisco, and an analysis by UX influential Peter Merholz, the intelligentsia are hailing the decline of UX and design agency work in technology. Exacerbating the situation are rumors that a variety of other agencies are in trouble, trying desperately to get bought as they prepare for a shutdown.

It’s so easy to get caught up in a few data points and a good story. But what’s really going on?