Good morning, It’s great to be back. It was wonderful to have a break – I ended up crashing out completely with a sore back and nasty cold – but I missed writing for two whole days! I hope you missed me too… On to the update: Why Vox (and BuzzFeed) Are Valuable From theSubscribe […]
Why Uber Fights
Ride-sharing is a winner-take-all market that depends on controlling demand more than it does supply.
Daily Update: Yik Yak and the Social-Communication Map, Recode Removes Comments, The Problem with Apple’s (RED) Campaign
Good morning, This week is Thanksgiving in the U.S., so expect much of the tech world to slowly grind to a halt over the next couple of days. I plan on having an article on Stratechery hopefully later today, but no Daily Update on Thursday or Friday. On to the update: Yik Yak and theSubscribe […]
Daily Update: Getting Xiaomi All Wrong, How is Slack Worth $1.2 billion?
Good morning, Let’s get to it – on to the update: Getting Xiaomi All Wrong Xiaomi’s financials (it is a private company) were leaked to the Wall Street Journal: A confidential document viewed by The Wall Street Journal shows that Xiaomi’s net profit nearly doubled last year, making it a lucrative business in an industrySubscribe […]
Daily Update: PayPal and Square, Facebook Payments?, Samsung: What Now?
Good morning, As I note below, I finally posted my PayPal article. Check it out! On to the update: PayPal and Square Yesterday I wrote on Stratechery about how PayPal is destined to grow increasingly irrelevant as innovation in the payments space moves to merchant account-based purchases: PayPal’s success in solving the peer-to-peer problem hasSubscribe […]
Daily Update: The Player’s Tribune and Corporate Journalism, Box Delays IPO, Rovio Layoffs
Good morning, I’m planning to write about the Paypal spinoff later today, so keep an eye out for that. On to the update: The Player’s Tribune and Corporate Journalism Over the last few weeks there have been a number of widely-shared articles despairing about the spread of corporate journalism, including this long piece in theSubscribe […]
Daily Update: Apple’s iCloud Press Release, Fantasy Sports Site Raises $70 million, TV’s Golden Age (and Journalism)
Good morning, Yesterday I wrote the first of two planned pieces on Apple’s upcoming announcement – The iPhone 6: From Louis Vuitton to Chanel. The main thrust of my article was about the idea of “Veblen Goods” – goods that increase in demand with price. However, I think wasn’t quite precise enough in my article.Subscribe […]
Daily Update: Amazon Local Register, Messaging Apps Are Extremely Profitable, Samsung v HTC
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: Buzzfeed Raises $50 million, NVidia’s Results and Gaming’s Resilience, Apple University Profiled
Good morning, I got really annoyed at the mainstream media last night, which perhaps makes me especially favorable to today’s first item about Buzzfeed. On to the updates: Buzzfeed Raises $50 million From the New York Times: BuzzFeed just closed a new $50 million investment from Andreessen Horowitz, a prominent venture capital firm in SiliconSubscribe […]