Last night, BlackBerry CEO John Chen penned a blog post on net neutrality. He was in favor of net neutrality but in the last half of his post introduced a whole new notion of neutrality: “Application Neutrality” or app neutrality for short. Suffice it to say, the Internet decided this was crazy. And, I’m going …
To provide eyes or not to provide eyes
Be My Eyes is a clever app created by Hans Jørgen Wiberg, a Danish craftsperson who is also visually impaired. I could explain it but you should really watch this video. https://player.vimeo.com/video/113872517 The design is quite clever. When asking people to contribute something voluntarily, it is always best to make people feel good about giving …
Something is wrong with Apple's International app pricing
Apple's App Store is a global platform for software developers to distribute apps to iPhones, iPads and Macs. As an institution it is phenomenal, reducing transaction costs and opening up many markets that were previously impenetrable to developers. This week Apple reported that the App Store made $15 billion for developers. But this week a problem …
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Is Kindle Unlimited Distorting Amazon Sales Ranks?
The integrity of sales rankings matters. It’s pretty well documented that bestseller rankings have direct effects on sales. In a world awash in titles, it’s hard to figure out what to read, so rationally lazy people rely on bestseller lists to learn what to read. Until recently, the Amazon top 100 was a meaningful ranking …
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The morality of price spikes
New Years Eve has come and gone and with it the annual discussion regarding whether Uber's 'surge pricing' is justifiable (for example, here is Slate and here is an excellent set of points from Tim B. Lee at Vox. For the uninitiated, 'surge pricing' occurs when Uber's algorithms automatically raise the price of rides to …
Digitopoly 