Firms in the smartphone market have been suing one another over patent violations. I cannot recall any other platform war that involved as many intellectual property disputes. Look, society grants patents as part of trade-off. A patent enhances the incentives to generate new invention by giving the inventor a temporary monopoly. That trade-off should never …
Sports stories written by algorithm
Have you suspected for some time that most writing about sporting events is formulaic? Well, suspect no more! It is possible to have a computer write a sports story merely from the box score. No seriously. It is. And there is some pretty interesting business economics in that example. Some professors from Northwestern figured out …
The Lexicon of Networking Economics
Economics rarely improves with reference to etymology, but an exception should be made for the economics of networks. Many valid but distinct definitions of “network economics” compete for attention. That causes confusion in academic writing and in public discourse. There are many symptoms of this confusion. Consider this one. When the late Senator Ted Stevens …
Digitopoly 