Nokia ignored America
Source: blogs.hbr.org
Mobile users polled by Keynote Systems for Adobe reported a preference for mobile browsers to access virtually all mobile content. Games, music and social media were the only categories in which users would rather use a downloaded app than browse the mobile web.
Safari versus iPad
Some good thoughts around the current hype of apps. If I were in the content business I would go for a browser centric strategy as well for mobile.
That’s so 20th century, it hurts. Here’s what’s so obviously, painfully wrong with the picture of people starving in the face of agricultural giants thriving: The profits earned don’t represent real value created — just a massive transfer of value from people, farmers, and communities to shareholders.
The New Paradigm of Advantage - Umair Haque - Harvard Business Review
Check out his model. What business are you in?
Source: blogs.hbr.org
Music streaming versus downloads?
I think a lot about the future of online music lately. This morning I read this piece in Wired about Google’s supposed and suggested music strategy which basically states that going into the cloud with our music will solve a number of problems related to keeping files locally on your computer:
“But we’re approaching a major inflection point in the short history of digital music, a time when we stop administering our own music collections on local hard drives, and instead build them online, where they can be accessed on a multitude of connected devices — smartphones, netbooks, tablets, computers, televisions, bookshelf systems and cars — without the tedium of managing each and every file transfer by hand.”
Confront that vision with this one by Cory Doctorrow:
“People will go on using streaming services, of course. They may even pay for them. But people will also go on downloading.”
Cory then goes on to describe a number of arguments in support of his view. On one side, he claims that people are collectors - think Seth Godin’s souvenir theory: “People love souvenirs… a souvenir reminds them of the idea they’ve already been sold on.” - and on the other hand he mentions a number of technical issues that aren’t going to be solved in the near future like spectrum scarcity, coverage issues, and DRM.
I also believe in Cory’s vision that it’s going to be a combination of ways to enjoy music: locally and over the Net. What do you think?
Netflix internal culture document. Inspiring stuff, there are some real gems in there. For example, check out the section starting at slide 63 regarding their performance culture and minimum amount of processes: ‘Netflix vacation policy and tracking: there is no policy or tracking.’ Brilliant. Only thing you could say about the document is that 128 slides needed to describe a culture is quite a lot, as someone pointed out in the comments, but ala. Via TechCrunch.
Saw the documentary Beyond The Game by Jos de Putter on the PVR yesterday evening. Watch the Dutch version for free online. The game follows 2 professional Warcraft 3 game professionals and world champions, Chinese SKY and Dutch Grubby. It gives an intriguing peek into the world of real-time strategy games where a lot of youngsters worldwide reside for a considerate amount of time each day. The only thing I missed was an insight into the personal motivations of the 2 players to get involved into the game and their views on the physical and mental consequences of playing it - especially on their level. Some hints with regards to the latter point are given by a former Swedish world champion, but still could have gotten a bit more attention I think. Recommended nonetheless.
