I believed that the top hat died off at the beginning of the 20th century. It turns out that, at least for very formal occasions like Inauguration Attire, the top hat still was worn by no less than President Kennedy in the early 1960s. (Then it died off. But still, that is quite remarkable.)

Here is Kennedy and Eisenhower and the former’s inauguration. You can also see men in the background wearing less formal hats. By the 1960s, however, the only hats you would see on men would be informal caps. The notion of formal headwear for most men ended here.

Of course there is no cookbook approach to capitalizing on social media. But in this blog post: From Tumblr to TV: How our #Starbucks ‘Trenta’ graphic became an online hit | Editors | National Post, they show you what they did to be successful, at least for a (very stellar) day, and thanks to this superb infographic:

John Cassidy over at The New Yorker has a great summary of the story, as well as a castigation of the GS senior management. Highly recommended. The best quote and summary of the situation is this:

The fact remains that Goldman, in attempting to set up a quasi-public market for Facebook’s stock prior to an I.P.O., is, to put it kindly, stretching the securities laws to their limit.