MIT's OCW (MIT OpenCourseWare) initiative is growing fast and expanding internationally through OCW consortium.
How disruptive this might be for the existing university "business-model"? What other open-source inspired models/initiatives would be promising? [No anwers, only questions]
Monday, March 19, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
From IT to ET (and back again)?
A recent NYT article discusses the funding, interest, and human capital attracted by Silicon Valley alternative energy technology (aka cleantech) start-ups lately. It feels like 96 but now for ET? We'll see in a few years. Independent of its future success, ET is complementing IT by making it more efficient and helping it scale; certainly not displacing it.
From the article:
"In the Internet boom, the mantra was to change the world and get rich quick. This time, given the size and scope of the energy market, the idea is to change the world and get even richer — but somewhat more slowly."
From the article:
"In the Internet boom, the mantra was to change the world and get rich quick. This time, given the size and scope of the energy market, the idea is to change the world and get even richer — but somewhat more slowly."
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
thinking about Internet analysts
So I attended a talk by Safa Rashtchy, a well known Internet analyst, a couple of weeks ago in NYC. Safa became famous by tracking Google and predicting a 600 price (GOOG) 1-2 years ago.
Some points:
- People use search as an exploration tool, thus making themselves attractive adevertising targets. - Google is obsessed about customer experience, and they are willing to sacrifice revenues if it is to improve that metric. Does this set them appart from competitors such as Yahoo, Microsoft etc?
- Search lowers ecommerce profit margins (bad for Amazon etc?), and this effect will intensify with the growth of "local search"
- Google's video business (youtube) may take off in 2007, although optimal way to do video advertising has not been figured out yet...
- Panama will help Yahoo improve monetization per search and increase search volume. But is will not shift customers from Google to Yahoo... [Why???? What is the rational here????] [By the way is there a systematic difference between advertiser's profile on Yahoo vs. Google?] [Marketshare only is not the whole story...]
- Google has distinct technology, culture, and brand advantages over their competitors [explanation? which of these are sustainable and why?]
- Mobile search is a significant trend (2007-08). Google did not pay much attention to that!
- Difficulties in China. Any recovery?
Safa is certainly a smart analyst, but here is an afterhought. There is a crucial distinction between the mantra of an analyst and a scholar. Here it is:
Analyst mantra: "If you can predict it, you dont have to explain it" (it = future, etc)
Scholar mantra: "If you can explain it, you dont need to predict it"
Technorati Profile
Some points:
- People use search as an exploration tool, thus making themselves attractive adevertising targets. - Google is obsessed about customer experience, and they are willing to sacrifice revenues if it is to improve that metric. Does this set them appart from competitors such as Yahoo, Microsoft etc?
- Search lowers ecommerce profit margins (bad for Amazon etc?), and this effect will intensify with the growth of "local search"
- Google's video business (youtube) may take off in 2007, although optimal way to do video advertising has not been figured out yet...
- Panama will help Yahoo improve monetization per search and increase search volume. But is will not shift customers from Google to Yahoo... [Why???? What is the rational here????] [By the way is there a systematic difference between advertiser's profile on Yahoo vs. Google?] [Marketshare only is not the whole story...]
- Google has distinct technology, culture, and brand advantages over their competitors [explanation? which of these are sustainable and why?]
- Mobile search is a significant trend (2007-08). Google did not pay much attention to that!
- Difficulties in China. Any recovery?
Safa is certainly a smart analyst, but here is an afterhought. There is a crucial distinction between the mantra of an analyst and a scholar. Here it is:
Analyst mantra: "If you can predict it, you dont have to explain it" (it = future, etc)
Scholar mantra: "If you can explain it, you dont need to predict it"
Technorati Profile
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