Last week I presented at the Lear Antitrust 2.0 conference in Rome. While there was no specific agenda beyond thinking about search and advertising, much of the discussion centred around Google's travails as EU Competition Authorities investigate its Google Shopping results (yes, really) and its dominance in Android. It was clear from the presentations by …
Killing yourself to survive is not the same as innovating
Sometimes a post appears that just annoys you so much that you need to comment on it. That happened to me yesterday with this post from Arjun Sethi on at all places, BackChannel (a blog I ordinarily like). Sethi is a product manager at Yahoo but was actually motivated by this passage from Facebook's Little …
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Uber, sharing and the compensation mechanism
We currently are in the Wild West of "sharing." Many people hate that term but I actually think it is useful. I would define the "Sharing Economy" as follows: 1. Individuals own key assets -- cars, dwellings, their time etc. 2. There exists a market platform to match those individuals with consumers that satisfies the …
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Economic Analysis of the Digital Economy
Is digitization destroying the music industry? A recent study shows that it may improve it by enabling new acts to enter at low cost. (Ch. 14, "Digitization and the Quality of New Media Products") What aren’t you doing while you are spiraling down an Internet black hole? Mostly watching TV and offline socializing, according to …
Competition and streaming deals
Following on from yesterday's post I discovered several things: 1. Taylor Swift is powerful. Really powerful. Apple responded to her letter and agreed to change course and pay artists etc for the three month free trial period. Maybe she can do more than just move the dial in music compensation. 2. Readers of this blog …
Who should pay for a 3 month trial?
Taylor Swift took to her blog today to, very politely, explain her decision to keep her latest album out of Apple Music. I’m sure you are aware that Apple Music will be offering a free 3 month trial to anyone who signs up for the service. I’m not sure you know that Apple Music will …
The Shift from Public to Private Markets in Tech Funding
Yesterday, the folks at Andreessen-Horowitz released a slide deck on their reasoning why "this time it is different" on tech funding and bubbles. It is worth a little of your time but here are the take aways: The amount of money going into tech start-ups is still much less than it was in the dot.com …
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Open Letter on the Digital Economy
We are in the early stages of an era of great technological change. Digital innovations are remaking our industries, economy, and society just as steam, electricity, and internal combustion did before them. Like their predecessors, computers and their kin are engines of great prosperity. Progress with hardware, software, and networks is improving our lives in …
How Twitter can be fixed
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 …
Digitopoly 