Macro Arment, the founder of one of my favourite apps, Instapaper, launched a magazine in Apple's Newstand app last year called The Magazine. Thusfar, The Magazine has received much discussion with regard to two things. First, it was accessible via an app-only subscription of $1.99 per month (there were two issues per month each containing …
Gesture control and the QWERTY effect
How we interact with devices is evolving. We started with the keyboard for a century before we added the mouse. On mobile devices, it was the keypad so much so that I remember a tech exec playing futurologist to me around the turn of the century and claiming that the kids want devices that use …
A Legend in Economics Passes
By Professor Thomas N. Hubbard, Senior Associate Dean, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University Armen Alchian died yesterday. He was 98. Many economists of my generation did not know Armen personally. However, signs of his work are pervasive in the field. There are many good examples of this in the research and teaching of many …
BBC Talk
The video stream from the BBC Seminar on the Economics of Broadcasting that I discussed a few weeks ago is now up. You can access it here. My talk is the third on the list and it is entitled (this will surprise no one), Television Wants to be Shared. There are lots of interesting talks …
Looking again at "Big Deal" scholarly journal packages
One of the things pointed to in the debate over market power and scholarly journals is the rise of "Big Deal" packages. Basically, this has arisen as publishers bundle journals together for a single price. Indeed, as the publishers have merged and acquired more titles, these bundled packages have become more compelling with individual journal …
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First Impressions of Mailbox
Mailbox is a new app for the iPhone. It is one in a growing series of attempts to re-think what email is about. I have written about this previously here. What these new email solutions are doing is recognising that your inbox is really one big to-do list and trying to restructure how you deal …
Game Structure
For several years, commentators have forecast that the rise in smartphones and tablets, as well as Facebook, would upend the structure of the gaming market. A variety of novel adroit aliens and irascible animals symbolically represent the new order, while new companies from new genres alter the identities of suppliers. Methinks that all the talk …
Tools of Change for Publishing
I have just spent the last couple of days in New York at O'Reilly's Tools of Change for Publishing conference. This is a fairly large gathering of publishers, authors and technology providers for them. I was a little out of place there as an economist academic but did have a healthy audience for my talk …
Postdoctoral Fellow in Infrastructure Studies
The University of Michigan announces an eleven-month postdoctoral fellowship position. The position will start September 1, 2013. Position Description The Department of Communication Studies (in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts) and the School of Information are jointly offering a postdoctoral fellow position in the multidisciplinary area of “infrastructure studies.” The addition of …
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Information Providers and Sharing
The World Financial Review has published a 'sort of' excerpt from Information Wants to be Shared. It may interest readers of this blog.
Digitopoly 