Sometimes Shark Tank is good for a bit of entrepreneurial strategy. Here is a video of Scott Jordan of Scottevest. This is a company that has gone all in on the idea that people want pockets for their gadgets. I love this stuff and have their vest, jacket, pants etc. What was he doing on …
Annals of Coherent Entrepreneurial Strategy: Clover Food Lab
Last week I was at MIT and had my first experience of Clover Food Lab. No, it isn't some fancy new scientific research institute. Instead, it is a food truck. Except that I didn't visit a food truck but felt that I had. The Clover I visited was, in fact, a cafe/restaurant/I don't know what …
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Amazon makes its case against Hachette
Well, after months of this, Amazon has taken up a new strategy in its dispute with Hachette -- to tell us what they want and why. Suffice it to say, this is an approach that we can only welcome as it allows us to delve deeper into the dispute and the nature of book publishing …
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 …
Am I as good an innovator as the folks at Apple?
Possibly and since I want to make the case be warned this post is a tad self-serving. Back in March I wrote the following: What this means is that: (a) the fitness tracker, watch and any other smarts you want will have to work from one band; (b) there will have to be a routine …
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One paywall model to rule them all
A few years ago I wrote a post that I was quite proud of. It was entitled "Is Paul Krugman Click Worthy?" Here's an excerpt: The New York Times has just proposed to turn us all into Seinfeld‘s Elaine Benes. In episode 119 of the classic sitcom, Elaine’s preferred method of contraception is revealed to be the sponge. When the …
How did the Snowden revelations impact behaviour?
This week the Australian government announced what seems to be an extraordinary piece of legislation. Spies who leak sensitive information will face tough new penalties of up to 10 years' jail and internet firms could be forced to store customers' data for up to two years under sweeping national security reforms. Prompted in part by …
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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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It's here: Netflix for Books or 'The Library'
Amazon just made official its Kindle Unlimited service that, for $9.99 per month, offers subscribers unlimited access to, at the moment, 600,000 books (including some big titles like Harry Potter). Basically, this is the Netflix model applied to reading and, from my perspective, it is interesting because I predicted it two years ago in Information …
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Do patents stifle cumulative innovation?
There has been a movement that began with the notion of the anti-commons that suggested that, whatever the other benefits and faults might be with the patent system, a fault that really matters for the operation of the system and for growth prospects (a la endogenous growth theory) is how patents might stifle cumulative or …
Digitopoly 