This week, a new email service, Hey.com, had their app halted (and maybe potentially removed as it had been previously listed by what Apple has called 'an error') because they do not offer the ability to purchase the service through the app. Without paying for the app, the Hey service is useless. Thus, Hey offers …
The Podcast Business Model
This week saw the launch of a new podcast startup, Luminary. With $100 million in the bank and podcasters like Trevor Noah and Adam Davidson signed up, they are hoping to become the Netflix of Podcasts. To access that content costs $7.99 but the content is ad-free. They had a post on Twitter proclaiming that …
The Pokemon GO Death Count
Have you ever wondered what economists do fun in Indiana? You might think that they could benefit from the global supply of digital goods like everyone else without having to worry about local effects. But you would be wrong. They are always thinking local. For Purdue University economists, Mara Faccio and John McConnell, they observed …
Those Horrible Apps
While I wouldn't want this to be a general statement: platform-owned apps can be really terrible. Why? Because they don't permit level-playing field competition between their own apps and third party apps on their platform. And that lack of competition is costly; maybe even for the platforms themselves. Consider a first example: iTunes. iTunes is …
What Meerkat v Periscope battle means for live mobile streaming
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 …
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The Organisational Choice of PowerPoint versus Excel
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 …
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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 …
A little podcasting
One of the newest ventures in the Creative Destruction Lab is 'Instaradio.' They have put out an app called RAUR and I have been playing around with it. What RAUR does is offer a dead simple way of broadcasting audio straight from a mobile phone. Basically, you set up an account and then, when you …
Digitopoly 