Facebook and Google and other advertising businesses are data factories, and regulation will be most effective if it lets users look inside
WhatsApp Founder Speaks, EU Deception?, Facebook Ideology
More Facebook drama, this time from an interview with WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton. What was most noteworthy, though was the response.
The Bill Gates Line
Understanding the differences between aggregators and platforms matters for companies interacting with them and also regulators considering antitrust.
The Moat Map Follow-up; Uber, YouTube, and Spotify; The Public Cloud and Scale
More on The Moat Map, and how it applies to Uber, YouTube, Spotify and the public cloud.
The Moat Map
The Moat Map describes the correlation between the degree of supplier differentiation and the externalization (or internalization) of a company’s network effect.
Tech’s Two Philosophies
Google and Facebook represent one philosophy, and Microsoft and Apple represent another; tech needs both, but ultimately platforms are more important than aggregators.
Netflix’s Earnings and the Video Value Chain, The Conditions of Aggregation, Comcast and Netflix and the New Bundle
Netflix’s earnings are a reminder of the power that comes from not just aggregation but also integration. It also reveals that Aggregators are more likely to gain economic power when suppliers are already modularized. Plus, Netflix and Comcast start to build the new bundle.
Zillow, Aggregation, and Integration
Zillow fits the description of an aggregator, but it hasn’t transformed its industry due to a lack of integration. Now it is trying to do exactly that.
The Difference Between Google and Facebook, Facebook’s Pedantry, Facebook and the Value of Data
More on the fallout from Facebook and Cambridge Analytica: why Google and Facebook are different, why that explains how they treat data, and why Facebook seems so oblivious.
Google Sells Zagat to The Infatuation, The Infatuation and Zagat, More on Google and AMP
A review of why Google bought Zagat, what The Infatuation might do with the review site, and the parallels with the AMP project.