Powerful structures for product-driven organisations
An interesting headline in yesteday's Standard. Something tells me they haven't quite got the hang of this internet thing. The huge and hostile $44bn bid Microsoft has planned for Yahoo! will doubtless fuel the ongoing religious debate between the brands. Google of course has come out with a statement that it has 'serious concerns' about… Continue reading Microsoft!
I've been thinking a lot recently about what it is that companies like Apple actually do to inspire the kind of religious fervour we've seen recently in the lead up to CES, and journalists and fans alike clamber over each other to make wilder and wilder predictions over the next miracle that Jobs will announce.… Continue reading No zealot like a convert
Couple of good quotes / stories I found in a desperate attempt to do some catch-up reading of my Economist stockpile. Strangely enough both items from the same page in the July 7th issue (p. 69). In A change of tune (paywalled), we have Warner Music chairman, Edgar Bronfman saying "The music industry is… Continue reading Music business
When it comes to technology innovation, it's interesting to hear some people still talk about a "five-year plan". After all, YouTube went from zero to £1.65bn in 18 months. Google only lost their beta tag 7 years ago. Paradigms can change literally overnight. In this fascinating interview, Jobs and Gates reveal that they've not got a… Continue reading The Bill and Steve show
There's an excellent post on RMM about this video ad (I have very little doubt that the word 'viral' was harmed in its creation). The ad is a take off of the movie, "The Break Up" with the couple discussing divorce representing the egotistical advertising world and the meek engagement-seeking consumer. As Matt Morrison points out, while the… Continue reading If you can’t beat them
When Google bought DoubleClick for $3.1bn in April, aQuantive said it expected its Atlas platform to benefit since advertisers were likely to have concern over impartiality when the world's biggest ad-serving network is owned by the biggest interactive adveritising seller. It seems highly unlikely when they said this that they weren't already doing a dance… Continue reading What’s the big deal?
Last week at Mix, Microsoft announced a huge raft of new products. Attendees describe the wave upon wave of releases as somewhat disorientating, overwhelming in its sheer volume so that some of key details may have been overlooked by much of the audience. Certainly many of the developments (like the relationship with Hugh McLeod) point… Continue reading See the light
I've got Vista on my laptop at home. I think I really like it but I've started to doubt myself. Am I crazy!? I've just done a google search for "Vista great" and I get no entries that aren't on the Microsoft sites and several with the word "not" inserted. It's quick, its cute,… Continue reading Vista – not bad!
Leading product 