Daily Update: Bitcoin and China, Samsung Earnings, International Plans for Xiaomi and Lenovo

Good morning, Please remember to update your GlassBoard, t-shirt, poster, and book preferences on your profile page if you have not already done so. Access members, also check out GlassBoard as I have a few ideas I want to put past you, and remember you can contact me directly by email here (the link isSubscribe […]

Daily Update: Microsoft, Qualcomm and Amazon Earnings

Good morning, I am aware of two issues with the daily update: Some email addresses were not automatically imported to MailChimp. I am investigating why and will add you manually if need be. Please email me if you have not been receiving emails Feedly does not respect the private RSS feed addresses and instead redirectsSubscribe […]

Daily Update (2014-04-24): Apple Earnings, Capital Structure; Facebook Earnings

Good morning, In case you missed it yesterday, you can now access the Daily Email on the web and through your private RSS feed. Let me know if you have any trouble getting this set up. I also sent a separate email to Access members and Annual Daily Update members asking you to resubmit yourSubscribe […]

Daily Email (2014-04-21): Social Platforms

Monday, April 21, 2014 – Social Platforms Good morning, First off, thank you for being a member of Stratechery. I really appreciate it. Second, in case you have not heard, this email will be the way in which I deliver your premium content. I explained my thinking last Friday in Free Stratechery and the DailySubscribe […]

The Social Conglomerate

When news of the Facebook/WhatsApp deal broke, a lot of people gave me credit for being prescient: after all, I had just written 1,568 words on why messaging was mobile’s killer app. WhatsApp, though, was all but absent from the article, meriting but a single mention, and in parenthesis at that! Viber does have strong […]

Google’s New Business Model

Excepting the patent and panic-driven Motorola deal, prior to yesterday’s acquisition of Nest for $3.2 billion, the previous largest deal Google’s history was DoubleClick for $3.1 billion 2006. Beyond the similar dollar figures, it’s a deal worth considering for what it says about Google then and now. With the acquisition of DoubleClick, Google solidified its […]

Facebook Acquires Onavo

Earlier this week Facebook acquired the mobile data analytics company Onavo. The original spin was that this was a great fit with Internet.org, given that Onavo’s apps are focused on monitoring data usage and maximizing the amount of data you get per kilobyte. Onavo said as much in their blog post announcing the acquisition: As […]

Two Minutes, Fifty-six Seconds

After endless dithering, that’s how long it took me to know the iPhone 5C would cost $549. It was at two minutes, fifty-six seconds1 that Tim Cook said there would be a video – a video! – about the iTunes Festival. And it was awesome. In case you didn’t watch the whole video (and you […]

Twitter Acquires MoPub

When Yahoo Acquired Tumblr, I wrote about the Signal-to-Ads Cycle: The result is the signal-to-ads cycle: Information is gathered from first-party sites via analytics, 3rd-party sites via ads, buttons, etc, and owned-and-operated mobile apps tied to your identity (think Instagram) Highly targeted ads are served in search results, display ads, and natively, primarily on PCs […]

The Deal That Makes No Sense

Early this morning Microsoft acquired Nokia for €3.79 billion (plus €1.65 billion for patents). It is a deal that makes no sense. While industry observers love to pontificate about mergers and acquisitions, the reality is that most ideas are value-destroying. It is far better to form an alliance or partnership; most of the benefits, none […]