Good morning, The position of China in tech is so fascinating: it is well on its way to being the most important market in the world, yet it is largely inaccessible to most foreign companies. The big exception in the U.S. is Apple, so we start there. On to the update: Understanding China, or NotSubscribe […]
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 […]
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: Uber v Lyft in NYC, Defending Surge Pricing, Taylor Swift on Music
Good morning, I wrote a piece on Stratechery called Smartphone Truths and Samsung’s Inevitable Decline. While it is mostly about why Samsung’s disappointing results shouldn’t be a surprise, there are also several points that cover why Apple is not doomed, but Microsoft and Amazon are. Today’s theme is supply-and-demand, and we unsurprisingly start with UberSubscribe […]
Daily Update: ESPN and Univision Crack Down on Vine, Canada’s Anti-spam Law, BlaBlaCar Raises $100 million
Good morning, Hello from Wisconsin! First off, I apologize that yesterday’s update was sent out so late; it was sent on a schedule, and I messed up my timezones. Thanks for your patience. On to the updates: a central theme of Stratechery is the importance of context and the vast expanse of gray when itSubscribe […]
Daily Update: The FAA and Drones, Google to Preannounce New Android, Oculus Seeking Partners
Good morning, I wrote a piece yesterday about the latest attempt by European publishers to extract concessions out of Google for including their content in its listings. I’ve always found the idea kind of silly on the face of it, but actually thinking about why it is silly results in some interesting takeaways about whereSubscribe […]
Daily Update: Google Blocked in China, WeChat Ecommerce, LINE IPO?
Good afternoon, I finally posted the WWDC piece I mentioned yesterday: Growing Apple at WWDC. While the number of updates were pretty incredible, I think they mostly fit into a coherent growth strategy. Check it out. I apologize again that today’s update is a little later (tomorrow’s probably will be as well). I’m very muchSubscribe […]
Daily Update: Lenovo Earnings, Windows 8 Banned, Google Buys Divide
Good morning, Only 49% of you opened yesterday’s email (it’s usually 80%+); I heard from several folks on Twitter that it got sent to spam, likely because of GroupOn, so please take a look and mark it as “not-spam” if that is the case. I’ll be writing about the Microsoft Surface announcements on Stratechery laterSubscribe […]
Podcast: Exponent Episode 004 – Technology and Politics
On the newest episode of Exponent, the podcast I co-host with James Allworth: Are the recent debates on net neutrality, the protests of Google buses, even SOPA a sign of things to come? Building on yesterday’s article The Net Neutrality Wake-up Call, we discuss the intersection of technology and politics. Why do people in technology […]
The Net Neutrality Wake-up Call
Sometime in the summer of 2002, having just graduated from university and determined to change the world, I was driving home from Albert Lea, Minnesota formulating my resignation letter. After graduating I had, rather naively I suppose, assumed that politics was the best means to effect the change I desired, and so had taken a […]