HBO is currently a bundled product. To watch Game of Thrones you need a cable subscription. That means that to watch it you either subscribe to a premium package on cable or you pirate. HBO clearly do not make money on the latter and the chances are, if you are not in the US, that …
The Secret Life of Wally Madhavani
Author’s note: I began writing columns for IEEE Micro in April of 1995. This is the 100th column. To mark this milestone this column offers a parody of James Thurber’s 1939 story, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” In the original story Thurber described Mitty’s shopping trip with his wife in Waterbury, Connecticut. What would …
How agnostic is The Economist about print versus digital?
Today I was fortunate enough to attend a lunch where the speaker was The Economist editor-in-chief, John Micklethwaite. His talked was wide ranging but, not surprisingly, what interested me is the question he received about disruption in his own industry. The Economist, of course, is faring well especially compared with newspapers. He attributed this to …
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Jeff Skoll defines social entrepreneurship
First, some disclosure. I hold the Jeffrey S. Skoll Chair in Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship here at the Rotman School of Management. Jeff Skoll [picture to the left from the Globe and Mail] endowed the Chair some years back and I'm the third person to hold it. So I am very grateful for that contribution …
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Leap Motion's incredible strategy
It isn't every day that you wake up to read about a huge leap forward in technology. That appears to have happened today with a new product -- Leap Motion. Basically, it is Kinect on steriods and open. Watch the video. It looks quite incredible. Indeed, its inventors wrote on their site: "It sounds too …
A dumb compromise to save the ACS and Economic Census
Last week I commented in this space about the Tea Party's desire to make a symbolic cut in government by eliminating the American Community Survey and the Economic Census at the US Census. This would change economic statistics in the US, upending a system that has been in place since the end of World War …
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Paying by sharing is a bad idea
From Katherine St Asaph, an observation that AdWeek have set up what she calls a 'trollwall' for some articles (see her screenshot to the left). The idea is that you can read the full article if you share it. While this seems like a novel approach compared with a paywall, I have to point out …
What if TV networks embraced ad skipping?
For decades, there have been some consumers that would go to excessive lengths to skip ads. They would record shows on VCRs (by today's standards a complicated affair). They purchased DVRs. They resorted to piracy where ad-free versions of shows could be found. Overall, they engaged, not only in the program by program costs of …
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Do not cut the American Community Survey: an editorial.
The House Republicans recently voted to remove funding from the US Census. According to news reports, this action was motivated by a mix of Tea-Party symbolism and the legacy of a long-standing fight with the Census. This post will present a short editorial. While I have sympathy for part of the motivation for this action …
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Why Facebook needs to be baked into mobile OS
I've written before that successful social networks are geared towards encouraging sharing. In its desktop mode, Facebook achieved this by virtue of simplicity and a default group of circles. But in the mobile space it is struggling and I think I know the reason why. There are two broad activities that make a social network: …
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Digitopoly 