It took a couple of weeks to read through Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs (it's 600 pages or 2 million Amazon Kindle pages). As pretty much everyone has said, it is a gripping read and I, for one, cannot recommend it enough. But you should be warned. It is not a traditional biography but …
When will daylight savings end?
Early Sunday morning, the clocks in North America moved back one hour. This time around we didn't know it was coming and actually hardly noticed when it did. So few of our clocks are disconnected from the Internet, that this change can almost occur without us noticing. It is surely only a matter of time …
Moore's Law in solar energy
In today's NYT, Paul Krugman highlights the subsidy being given to the 'fracking' methods of fossil fuel extraction: basically, another example where costs are socialized although, let's face it, the most common example. The story of an old technology using non-market means to keep itself afloat is, of course, the way things work. (Just travel …
FTC Presentation
I'm presenting today at the Annual FTC Microeconomics workshop. Here is the agenda for that conference. You'll note the disproportionate representation by faculty members here at the Department of Strategic Management at Rotman. My topic is on "The Impact of the Internet on Advertising Markets for News Media" based on my work with Susan Athey …
Where is Dropbox's power?
Dropbox is the simple file syncing service that has grown, in just a few years, to 50 million active users. 96% of those users do not give a cent to Dropbox. The remaining 4% pay for more storage and purportedly make it profitable; this percentage is growing every day. I use Dropbox because of its simplicity, …
Google Reader design, sigh
Warning, this is going to be a ranty post not really related to my expertise. There are two types of blog reader -- those who use RSS feeds and those who don't. Those who don't, visit a few blogs each day to see what's new. Those who use RSS feeds, use a feed reader that …
icanhasreach
The CEO of Icanhascheezburger.com stated that their "mission is to make everyone in the world happy for five minutes a day." If you are in the world, then you have no doubt seen the products of their website. If not, click on the link and enjoy your morning. Sites like this are not usually considered a threat to …
Grant from the Sloan Foundation
Readers of this blog will recall that the Sloan Foundation's funding of the NBER Economics of Digitization program was the impetus to starting this blog. Erik and Shane are among the leaders of that program. I am happy to announce today that a program that I will co-direct with Fiona Murray (MIT) has just been …
A is for Apple
What do Steve Jobs and Chicago plumbers have in common? Apparently, they care about alphabetical order. Like the rest of the world, I have been reading Walter Isaacson's new biography of Jobs. In choosing the name Apple, Jobs says: I was on one of my fruitarian diets ... I had just come back from the …
Smaller and smaller books
Erik Brynjolfsson hasn't been blogging too often because over the last couple of months he has been book writing. He and Andrew McAfee have released their new book, Race Against the Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy. If you think that is a wordy …
Digitopoly 