In today's New York Times, David Brooks argues that a competitive and creative spirit may be substitutes. We live in a culture that nurtures competitive skills. And they are necessary: discipline, rigor and reliability. But it’s probably a good idea to try to supplement them with the skills of the creative monopolist: alertness, independence and …
My two cents on the golden balls
Since everyone is talking about it, here is my two cents on the above 'Golden Balls' video. Let's suppose that the guy on the left is choosing column and the guy on the right is choosing row. (The first payoff in each cell in the following game is the right guy's payoff). Here is the …
Pebble makes it big
A couple of months ago my watch died. I didn't mourn, I had come to hate it. Basically, it was purchased in the pre-iPhone era and for years I lamented that no technological change had come to the watch. It was a pain to change the time and all the other functions were clunky. I …
A Big Payoff
Google and Apple are two of the most profitable companies on the globe today. They seem to share little in common except that achievement. They took very different paths to the stratosphere. Google, after all, is less than a decade and a half old, a child of the web with a successful approach to advertising, …
What if the eBook 'conspiracy' hadn't happened?
The DOJ took Apple and a set of publishers to Court today on price fixing charges in relation to an alleged conspiracy. Now if you read the DOJ's claim it looks bad but, having read some of these before, let me tell you that they always look bad. We really have to wait until a …
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The Craigslist Killer and Online Privacy
Let's discuss the Craigslist killer, online privacy, and police procedures. Why has this old case from 2009 gotten new attention? The murder itself was rather gruesome and unusual, and the events grabbed considerable attention at the time, especially in the Boston area where they took place. However, it all happened several years ago. Why remember …
Snapguide and the content platform
A little while ago I wrote about the importance of content platforms: "Content platforms" are emerging that are designed to solve precisely this problem. A content platform is a standardized means of presenting information. Take, for instance, Yelp. If you want restaurant information, it gives you a list of possibilities with a ranking that can be …
Disruption versus competition
I was provoked into writing this post today when Horace Dediu tweeted the following chart: The chart is a thing of beauty although we should take it with a grain of salt. It shows how value has been transferred from a set of incumbents to Apple over the last four years. It has some choices …
Is privacy an antitrust problem?
Privacy has just recently entered antitrust discussions. The debate has focused on whether concerns about privacy should be used as a criterion to regulate large firms that look like monopolies. The question which US Senator Al Franken raises is whether a reduction in consumer harm due to privacy erosion should be treated in a similar …
April fools round for tech and econ
It is that season again. Today is April fools day and the Internet celebrates. Here is a convenient round up of contributions from tech and economics. Google: as they do every year, Google enjoy a good prank. This year Google maps has an 8-bit mode, Gmail gets taps, Chrome gets multitasking, there's Street Roo and Sergey …
Digitopoly 