Chris Sacca, an investor who predicted Twitter's success ahead of everyone has penned some thoughts. If you are really interested, it is worth the read but he helpfully provides a summary. Twitter simply needs to: Make Tweets effortless to enjoy, Make it easier for all to participate, and Make each of us on Twitter feel …
Backwards digital thinking
It happens often. An old media company makes a crazy and misunderstood statement about new media. Sometimes I start to think that after all of these years, maybe just maybe, they will start to get it. But then a story appears that demonstrates how far off things are. That happened today. The Globe and Mail …
Google's Big Photos Jump and Machine Learning
After years of seeming missteps (e.g., Google Plus, Google Glass, Google Wave, Google Keep), Google roared back yesterday with a new Photos service. This seems pedestrian in terms of Google's usual ambitions but actually it is incredibly on mission; that is, if Google's mission is to organise the world's information. The new service is billed …
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Economics in One Lesson: Nash
John Nash passed away yesterday. He was killed, along with his wife, in a taxi accident. Nash is not a figure who had a recent and continual impact on economics but he is perhaps the person who had the single idea with the most important impact on economists of anyone. That idea was equilibrium or …
Did the iPhone kill BlackBerry?
Yes and no. I raise this issue today because of the extract from a soon to be released book, Losing the Signal: The Rise and Fall of BlackBerry by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff that appeared in the Wall Street Journal. I happen to have read this book for a forthcoming review of it in …
Mathiness: A Guide for the Perplexed
From my twitter feed at the annual American Economic Association meetings, we knew it was coming: Paul Romer (the founder of endogenous growth theory) had levelled an attack on many macroeconomic theorists including his advisor Bob Lucas. The nature of this attack would have to arrive in May when the article appeared in the American …
Behind the Buzz of Behavioral Data
What is the economic value of online behavioral data? It is a seemingly simple question. Define the terms. Behavioral data refers to information produced as a result of actions, typically commercial behavior using a range of devices connected to the Internet, such as a PC, tablet, or smartphone. Behavioral data tracks the sites visited, the …
One week with the Apple Watch
So I have had the Apple Watch for a week. "Of course you have," you may say. But my spouse has had it too and she is not one to adopt things early. That may assure readers that perhaps some more objectivity may come with this review. I waited a week so that I could …
Is climate policy compatible with Tesla's battery-fueled dreams?
Many of the targeted behavioral responses to climate change involve reducing energy consumption. This makes sense as the majority of energy consumed (pretty much throughout all history) has involved burning of fossil fuels, and this, in turn, is responsible for the ridiculous buildup in greenhouse gases, notably CO2. So the main thrust of smart climate …
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Step right up, sell Google your patents
One of my longest research projects has been centered on the market for ideas — the idea that innovators can sell their ideas to others rather than take them to markets themselves. The problem is that while conceptually something like a market for ideas sounds like a good idea where exactly it is has been …
Digitopoly 