Two pieces appeared on Medium in the last couple of days about Amazon; both critical and complimentary in their own way. But put together they reveal a contradiction at the heart of what Amazon is doing in terms of social value.Let me explain. The first piece you should read is by Clay Shirky. When Shirky nails …
Fixing the Reputation Score at ebay
I saw this paper by Chris Nosko and Steve Tadelis presented two years ago. I have wanted to blog about it in all that time but because it came out of ebay Research Labs, it was not available. Happily, that constraint has now been lifted. It is a wonderful piece of research and the application …
Amazon's Kindle Unlimited: There may be a danger for authors
Thusfar, I think it is safe to say that publishers have had the most to worry about with regard to Amazon's monopsony power rather than authors; and what power there is comes at their own fault for relying continually on DRM restraints. Indeed, on many levels, one can see that Amazon has provided more opportunities …
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Should Wikipedia have robot helpers?
Wikipedia is famously open to anyone to edit. In practice, whether your edits sustain themselves depends upon other Wikipedia editors and the enforcement of various norms and rules that have emerged. The WSJ highlighted a new type of Wikipedia editor -- essentially a robot. Sverker Johansson could be the most prolific author you've never heard …
Apple and the re-design of coding
Coding is all the rage. Many are arguing it is an essential skill for the modern economy. They believe it should be an essential part of the school curriculum. Fundamentally, what is being asked in coding is a very difficult exercise requiring skill development that has applicability well beyond coding. These skills are familar to those who do …
Uber's tough market design challenge
Uber has a difficult challenge. Faced with voracious interest group attacks, every misstep is a potential public relations problem. Previously, they have been hit hard regarding 'surge pricing' whereby in periods of high demand prices may be several multiples their usual level. We economists like surge pricing because it effectively rations demand while encouraging supply. …
Why the mobile operating system market won't tip
Fear of tipping dominates information technology. The most famous example of this was PC and Mac where an orientation towards business led to a greater variety of software titles being available for Windows than Mac which wasn't dislodged until the use of the Internet became the primary use case for a computer. But today, where …
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The motivations of Amazon reviewers
There is a very interesting Planet Money podcast about Amazon reviewers. The podcast focusses on top reviewers. These are people who are at the top of Amazon's own reviewer rankings. They get there by writing lots of reviews and also on the quality of their reviews measured in part by whether consumers found the reviews helpful. The podcast …
Is upfront app pricing over?
Marco Arment, who has been responsible for some popular apps including Instapaper, is a leader in the app world on discussions of mobile app strategy. For that reason, when he makes a pronouncement that tends to start a discussion. And in today's instalment, he pronounced, upfront mobile app pricing over. What is upfront app pricing? …
iOS7 is great for developers but Apple's own apps continue to suffer
Last week Apple realised iOS 7, the latest version of its mobile operating system. It was a very large update reflecting the design choices of Johnny Ive rather than Steve Jobs. I have been using iOS 7 for about six weeks now and I can say that it is a pleasure to use. It feels …
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Digitopoly 