Prediction Markets

Is it a good idea to encourage ALL employees to trade in these markets? Should insiders and/or highly uninformed people be allowed to trade? Do they help or hurt the market?

I see this as a catch 22 – could go either way.  It might be good for all employees to participate as it would keep all employees at least interested in all events occuring within an organization.  BUT at the same time, allowing people to express their views on the outcomes of what have you, of things they might not be involved in, could be hilariously disasterous.  What better way to throw a project of your rival in the company by getting your friends to vote for failure for that guy.  The transparency created could also be good and bad depending on projects and people in the know of a certain project.

Insiders should be allowed to trade if you are having ALL employees trade.  It would just need to be anonymous and those people who are trading their project should only be allowed to do it when others are not aware that those people are trading their project.   They would help the market or hurt the market based on their inside information relating to the project.

I also feel that some incentive is definitely needed or else what would really drive participation?

Threadless

In what other industries or areas would Threadless’ community-driven product development model work well? And not so well?

Threadless.  User driven business model.  Works extremely well for t-shirts.  This model could also work really well in any area that requires or relies on user created content.  This could work well for paintings, music, quilts, or even … well … anything that is created by people for people.   Although that last one might be hard to pull off in some contents, you get the idea.

Any content that is not user driver, ie that is more created with the idea that it will be distributed en masse, the threadless model would not work.  Although I can’t think of anything off the top of my head, I am sure there are some things out there that would not work well.  How’s that for being vague?

Social Networks

Online social networks have become ubiquitous in the past few years. What forms of value do users get from these services and who is most likely to sign up on LinkedIn versus other sites?

I think the most value that users get from these services is merely just contacts management and more recently, the ability to let everyone know what is going on in your world.  Having an online page that allows you to see and view your friends contact information, is actually somewhat nice.  This is a benefit to the e-stalkers, as they can find out some information, but then again, if they really wanted that information, they would find it any ways.  Facebook recently has turned twitter like and allows people to post what they had for lunch and everyone who is their friend and can see their status updates gets updated!  This is somewhat unnecessary in my opinion, but I can see where some users may get value out of knowing what their chicken sandwich tasted like.

LinkedIn appears, at least on its surface, to be a more sophisticated social network. I personally do not have an account there, so I have not had time to play with it.  The ’shadowed’ non-direct point-to-point communication would appeal to those who like to have a chain of command in your contacts.  LinkedIn also appears to be more oriented to attract professionals and not attract  ‘kids’ with flashy myspace pages filled with animated gifs.

Wiki wicky weekee

How do Wikipedia’s processes for creating and modifying articles ever lead to high-quality results?

Oh Wikipedia.  How did we ever live without you?  Right?  Right?  Eh, maybe not.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Wikipedia.  I use it at least once a month.

I grew up with Encyclopedia Britanica and encyclopedia’s on the computer.  They were the inevitable defacto go-to when it came to fourth grade research papers on the intricacies of the state of Virginia.  I went through university without the privilege of being able to access wikipedia, and have come accustomed to searching for the information I need from a reputable quotable source.  This in my mind, assures me that I am finding and using creditable information.

Can the same be said for Wikipedia?  Sure depends on who you ask.  I think Wikipedia is a great idea.  For me, it is a great tool to get a start on the information you need.  The users who edit pages on Wikipedia often provide links to where their information came from, which is where I normally go.  Modifying an article on Wikipedia is easy to do and if someone does not like your changes, they can edit it back.  There are certain moderators that can lock and retain control over a page that is a hot topic.  This ensures that at least the information being provided is scrutinized – yet someone still has control over whether that information gets published.  You would think that this would lead to high-quality material, but I feel this detracts from the spirit of Wikipedia.  This also plays out in the articles that are not considered to be hot-topics.  You can look through the change logs and see where what appears to be the same few people editing the same article.  This is all well and good, but what if someone, say perhaps an expert in a field, wants to add something, and the collective body as a whole disagrees with what this person has to say?  You would end up with a bunch of people editing and re-editing the changes made by the person which would inevitably trigger the hot topic alert and bam, guess who’s most likely back in charge.  Now you have no idea which information is correct and what to believe.

Certainly high-quality results are available within Wikipedia.  But I personally would rather find the information elsewhere.  Straight from the horse’s mouth if you will.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Employee Blogs

What are the advantages and disadvantages of implementing internal versus external employee blogs in a corporate setting?  Are there certain industries where one of these strategies makes more sense?

I have no idea where this post went. I’ll try and find it for those sitting on the edge of their seats waiting to hear what I have to say.

Digital Music Market

Has the digital music market irreversibly tipped in Apple’s favor?

Irreversibly, meaning no one else has a chance at knocking off Apple, let alone even sharing the crown with Apple?  Personally, I think not.  I think this question is just a highlight of my thoughts on the subject.  If you mention Apple to most consumers and ask them to name the first word that comes to mind, I wager that iPod is the next word out of their mouth.  If you mention digital music, or mp3 to most consumers and ask them to name the first word that comes to mind, I wager that there would probably be a split between iPod, Apple, and iTunes or some combination thereof.  Personally, I have never owned an iPod nor do I use the iTunes software.  But I digress and go back to the question at hand.

I think Apple’s penetration into the digital music market is ever present and more importantly, lasting.  This hasn’t stopped other competitors from entering the market, such as Amazon, Walmart, and other various web based e-tailers.  But, it seems as though they are all lacking something to start picking away at Apple’s share.  I think this revolves around my questions to consumers above, and more importantly, the iPod – or simply what the competitors are lacking.  Apple created a market around its hardware.  Want to effectively transfer music to your newly bought iPod?  Here’s iTunes.  Want to buy new music?  Oh look, here’s the iTunes store within its own software.  Apple had such a hold on consumer’s buying habits for digital music that by the time other competitors entered the market it was too little too late.

A comparison market though different in many ways in my opinion, is the Playstation and Xbox.  Microsoft’s ability to stay and compete with Sony was only as a result of their deep pockets and their willingness to see if those pockets had a bottom.  In order for a competitor to compete with Apple at this time, I feel that they too will need some deep pockets.  Has Microsoft, again, begun another battle – this time with their Zune and the Zune Marketplace?  Perhaps.  Only time will tell, and I have a feeling that eventually Apple will have to share the crown, but not before much spending and time.

NTT DoCoMo & Google

1. Is DoCoMo wise to offer its existing mobile phone rivals access to FeliCa?

DoCoMo has realized that FeliCa (could they have picked names without random capital letters strewn about) is a potential for them to make more money and realize a new revenue stream. Speaking purely from the business side in me, I think it is obvious to see in this case, as in other businesses, that great revenue can be realized from the licensing of ones product/technology or what have you. Also, by licensing the technology to rivals, the rivals have a ‘later’ access to the technology since DoCoMo will be first with any change in FeliCa. This has potential to lure users of other services to DoCoMo such that they can benefit from first access to the new technology rather than wait for their service to update.

2. Is search a winner-take-all business?

I think ’search’ has proven to not be a winner-take-all business. Soaring stock prices and potential mergers aside, the fact remains that there are dominant players in the searching industry. A quick search leading me here (http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2009/01/16/google-search-share-steady-in-december-comscore-says/) has shown that while Google may have 63.5% of the U.S. search market there are still at least four other players that maintain at least 3.8% of the U.S. search market. Assuming that there is an average of 12.7 billion searches per month (number taken from the link), even the little guy is still seeing 482 million search queries per month. But what does all this mean with respect to class and the case we read? Not much really, just proof that even the little guy still sees a few queries. But reflecting on the case we read, search engines are one in the same. Sure they may index content differently, thus providing different results for like terms, but, for a user, going from one search engine to another to see the differences takes less effort than to write this last sentence. Thus, the switching costs and the homing costs are low, if non-existent for users. Advertisers on search engine pages also experience low homing costs and low switching costs, as the search engine provider themself probably receives the same data from a advertiser.

Online gaming

Since the writing of the Electronic Arts Case the Sony Playstation 3 and the Nintendo Wii have been released and both have online gaming capabilities. What’s your assessment of the current online gaming market?

The current online gaming market is competitive. Each major console maker has, or is attempting to claim, its share of the online gamers. Stemming back from BBS (bulletin board service) games on personal computers, online gaming has a pretty extensive history. Online gaming has always been a lure for personal computers as developers of software titles for that platform have realized the benefits that online capabilities can bring to their titles. Games without online access do not have the longevity as their online counterparts. The online gaming community has grown with console developers beginning to offer online capability to their consoles. Before the Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii, users with Playstation 2 and Nintendo Gamecube (old generation) were able to access online functions but the capability to do so was not built into the console — rather it was added through an additional purchase. The Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii built online capable hardware into the consoles and both makers have seen marked increase in online access. Without online access, consoles would not be able to take the stronghold that they have, and I feel that makers will only continue to strive to push for more online access and compete for more market share.

Netflix VOD, compete or fill a VOiD

The question posed for this week’s case is: What is your analysis of how Netflix has attempted to update their business model with VOD?

Netflix themselves have been around since 1997.  Around this time, Blockbuster Video and other local rental chains were growing exponentially as families began to realize the pure savings of renting a movie and staying in versus spending $20-30 on tickets alone for a movie for a family of four.  Netflix, in turn, stepped up and offered a way for families to skip that trip to the store.   As technology expanded, so did Netflix.

Video On Demand (VOD), has been around for quite some time.  Dating back to 1994,  VOD is a way for an end user, or consumer, to have instant access to a desired video content.  VOD even has ties back to Enron, but that’s a story for another day.   VOD services are available to most users of cable company supplied cable boxes.  Satellite TV users also normally get access to on demand content.

Having said that, if we now state that the definition of a ‘business model’ is ‘how to make money’ we get a simplistic view of what Netflix may be attempting to do with the introduction of their VOD service – make money or perhaps even, keep revenue coming in the door.  Knowing that cable companies and satellite TV companies are already offering VOD services to their customer, those customers may also be customers of Netflix, it is highly likely that Netflix may have been thinking that they too needed to offer VOD services or risk seeing their customer base rely solely on their set top boxes (be it as it may whoever’s box it is).   Is it that Netflix is attempting to compete with these providers, or are they filling a void within their own model to prevent the competition from luring their customer base away?  I feel that it is a combination of the two and that Netflix is merely keeping up with the times.  I feel that Netflix may have felt some external pressure from the other VOD services and wanted a ‘me too’ approach to be seen by their customers.  I also feel that Netflix may have felt some internal pressure from their customer base to offer VOD services as other companies do.   Either way, it is safe to say that Netflix updated their business model to include the VOD services in their efforts to make money and sustain profitability.

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