Competition in the Digital Age
For many readers of this blog, this story in the Consumerist is a harrowing account. Only months after moving into his new home in Washington state, Consumerist reader Seth is already looking to sell his house. He didn’t lose his job or discover that the property is haunted. No, Seth can’t stay much longer because …
Continue reading "How important is broadband competition? For some, really important"
If you have been on Twitter this past month, you have heard of Meerkat. This is an app that allows you to stream video from your mobile phone. It’s barely a month old and already it seems there’s a “Meerkat killer.” Apparently everyone has suddenly realized there might be value in live mobile streaming. More …
Continue reading "What Meerkat v Periscope battle means for live mobile streaming"
If a firm goes bankrupt, do the creditors get to auction off their email list? How about names and addresses of those in a loyalty program? Welcome to the modern privacy economic dilemma. Creditors want as much money as they can get out of assets that will pay only a fraction on the dollar owed. …
News came through recently that Facebook will host news sites’ content. Apparently, Buzzfeed and the New York Times are first off the block for this. While we don’t know precisely what it will mean, there is much consternation about news sites losing their distinctive brand and eventually being beholdent to Facebook. John Gruber even invoked …
Continue reading "Hosting Content on Facebook is about Ad Tracking"
https://static.medium.com/embed.jsAn insight into the future: What happens when Disney’s Magic Band system goes down?
Check out this WSJ article by Tim Aeppel, involving a few quotes from yours truly at the very end.... 50 Million Users: The Making of an "Angry Birds" Internet Meme.
https://static.medium.com/embed.jsA quick remark on the Apple Watch Edition (the $10K+ one) A lot has been said about the Apple Watch Edition which costs more than $10,000. I initially thought it wouldn’t be priced like that as it would be out of character for Apple whose identity was more mass market — with technology being widely available. To …
Continue reading "A quick remark on the Apple Watch Edition (the $10k one)"
Short answer: it isn’t obvious that it can. Let me back up a second and explain why I am revisiting this issue again. Tim Harford published an article a few days ago that took his masterful econsplaining skills to the issue of net neutrality. But in providing his characteristically clear exposition, he crystallised where many …
It turns out that it can tell you a lot. This is what I took away from a very interesting talk given by Princeton sociologist, Janet Vertesi, on “the social life of robots.” As it turns out, it is not about the robots but about the people that control them — as opposed to the opposite that …
Continue reading "The Organisational Choice of PowerPoint versus Excel"
Digitopoly 