Good morning. Hello from somewhere between Madison and Chicago. I’m in the car on the way to the airport, heading back to Taiwan. As I noted yesterday, updates for the rest of the week will come at odd hours, including, obviously, today’s. Thanks for your patience. Yesterday on the main site I asked Is BuzzFeedSubscribe […]
Is BuzzFeed a Tech Company?
It’s telling that Chris Dixon, in a blog post explaining Andreessen Horowitz’s $50 million investment, goes out of his way to explain that BuzzFeed is not really a media company, but a technological one: We see BuzzFeed as a prime example of what we call a “full stack startup”. BuzzFeed is a media company in […]
Daily Update: Sprint Abandons T-Mobile Bid, Microsoft Hires New Head of BD, Apple Touts App Store
Good morning, Yesterday I wrote about P&G’s recent decision to reduce its brands from nearly 200 to less than 100. While the easy takeaway is to talk about focus and bloat, I actually think that there is a tech story here as well. After all, lots of brands made a lot of sense in theSubscribe […]
Pleco: Building a Business, not an App
This past week has not been the first outbreak of independent developer angst over the app store, but it feels like it has been one of the more intense. The pump was primed by the news that Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is on pace to make $200 million this year, news that was in stark contrast […]
Daily Update: Samsung’s Collapsing Profit, Sprint’s Facebook-only Plan, Facebook Splits Messenger
Good morning, I apologize this update is a bit late; I was up late recording a podcast where, appropriately enough, we talked about how Apple is able to preserve its margins because of its software, and then slept a wee bit long. Still, that’s a useful lead-in to today’s first item: Samsung’s Collapsing Profit ItSubscribe […]
Daily Update: The Twitter Enigma, Amazon Follow-up, Diapers.com CEO Raises $50 million
Good morning, A quick heads up re: meetups for Access members. The time and location of Friday’s New York meetup has been finalized and should be in your Inbox. If you didn’t get the email or wish to join, please follow up with me directly. Same with Chicago and Madison. As for the update, ISubscribe […]
Losing My Amazon Religion
Benedict Evans asks a good question: If you were running this business, why would you slow down to take profits? pic.twitter.com/mbMNfbyZT4 — Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans) July 28, 2014 The growth curve is impressive enough, even before you notice that the scale is logarithmic. And to be sure, Amazon has had doubters from the beginning: few […]
Daily Update: Zillow Acquires Trulia, Samsung Delays Tizen Again, China Investigating Microsoft
Good morning, Tech is amazing: after doing more of a thematic Daily Update yesterday, I now feel behind on everything that is happening. And it’s late July! One more bit of followup though on media and authority: I thought it was interesting to see Nate Silver complain about the attention the New York Times wasSubscribe […]
Daily Update: Amazon Earnings, Xiaomi Releases Wearable, Facebook Messenger and Uber
Good morning, First off, I had a new post on Stratechery on Wednesday about the Apple-IBM deal called Big Blue and Apple’s Soul. Check it out if you missed it. Secondly, I am having meetups for Access members in New York (8/1), Chicago (7/31) and Madison (TBD) over the next couple of weeks. I haveSubscribe […]
Daily Update: Facebook Crushes Earnings Again, Qualcomm’s China Problem
Good morning, Only two updates today, because both are big ones, and I don’t want to wear you out! Earnings week continues with two very interesting results from Facebook and Qualcomm. On to the updates: Facebook Crushes Earnings Again From Bloomberg: Sales rose to $2.91 billion for the period from $1.81 billion a year earlier,Subscribe […]