Conventional wisdom is that Google is an extremely well oiled recruitment machine. And yet...
http://www.businessinsider.com/googles-broken-hiring-process-2009-10
Friday, 30 October 2009
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
The Future?
Interesting perspectives from someone you want to pay attention to:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_web_in_five_years.php
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_web_in_five_years.php
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
The Future of Wikipedia
The founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, in defining the mission of Wikipedia clearly stated Wikipedia as a non-profit organization reliant on donations to sustain itself in the business of gathering information. He has also clearly stated that he would not seek advertising on Wikipedia as a means to monetize it. So the question on what is the business model of Wikipedia is an interesting one. Wikipedia works on the model of crowd sourcing relying on the user community to edit and add information. But what motivates these users to contribute with information? How does Wikipedia pay for its staff and development? Is its business model vulnerable because of its heavy reliance on external funding? Thinking about these questions does make one wonder if there are any opportunities for monetization beyond the donations from the users.
Although a lot many questions are raised on the reliability of Wikipedia for information, it is considered to be a fairly accurate source of information given the large number of users enhancing its quality through corrections and citations. With over 3 million articles and a high page rank on Google, Wikipedia could generate enough and more revenue by opening up to advertisers on its pages. Although this goes directly against the stated mission statement, such a move would guarantee the long-term sustainability of Wikipedia, a valuable source of information referenced by 250M people. Furthermore, just as an example, the additional revenue generated through advertising can be used to address social issues such as education of the under-served masses who in turn would be encouraged to contribute to Wikipedia with deeper insight on topics lesser known to the outside world. By encouraging such initiatives, Wikipedia could continue to exist as a non-profit organization minimizing its reliance on external funding and at the same time helping with other social initiatives.
Amongst the many questions, the first question that arises is whether the founder would hurt the sentiments of the users, more specifically the ones who contribute out of a sense of giving or sharing their knowledge by allowing advertisements. But if the new, self-sustainable and socially responsible Wikipedia can continue its existence as a non-profit organization with an objective that fits in line with the sense of giving objective of the contributing users, then there should be no reason for these users to turn away from contributing.
More resources could mean more initiatives or new ways of delivering content. In any case, users could be given the option to turn off advertisements. There is no doubt that Wikipedia would never have achieved its meteoric success if it were a for-profit entity. However, at present, less than 2% of its financing is through earned income which comprises of published DVDs (done in Germany) and a split ad revenue partnership model with Answers.com.
The underlying premise in the future would be to continue operating as a non-profit organization but eliminating the fragility of its existence which at the moment is based on a heavy reliance on donations. Interesting Jimmy Wales has been hunting for riches with a new for-profit company built on the same wiki idea.
By Sharad Piplani, MBA Class 2010
Thursday, 22 October 2009
Digital Books
There has been a growing interest in the digital book market this year, with many of the big players bringing products to market. Amazon surprised with their original Kindle, a technology that it would have no doubt calculated as one day eating into its traditional book market. This year has seen Sony enter the fray, and now Barnes and Noble has also come out with an Android powered eReader ('the Nook'). And in the background are lurking devices from companies such as Asus and News Corp (which mistakenly sees this business model as a panacea for the declining newspaper industry).
But what are they fighting for? The market for education has to be huge - gone will be school bags overstuffed with books; everything on one, streamlined device just makes sense. But beyond education, the picture becomes a little murkier. Is there a huge market for standalone book readers, for an additional device? Possibly not. An intuitive solution would be the merger of the laptop and book reader into an all in one solution tablet computer. Carrying around a smartphone and tablet means that in two devices I have a phone, GPS, PDA, computer and all of my books and documents; that sounds like a powerful value proposition. But the technology is not there yet, and it may be a while before a vendor is not only able to amalgamate all of these devices, but also wrap them up in an interface that is intuitive and productive (and there is still the issue of colour which would be a requisite for textbooks - current eReaders are black and white). A smartphone, a laptop AND a book reader, is just one device too many.
But there are other barriers other than technology. One of the reasons behind the rush to enter this nascent market is the drive to establish a digital book ecosystem and capture as much market share as possible. Businesses in this sector see the iTunes model and understand the overwhelming power it has given Apple within the digital music sector. And yet those very same companies, particularly Amazon (which usually has a good feel for its customers needs), are making the same mistakes as the music industry when it was dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age. One fact not mentioned enough is that buying a Kindle book does not give you control over it; the book sits on Amazon's servers, and should Amazon wish to delete it, they can (as they did recently with some of George Orwell's books over a copyright dispute - customers were not consulted, and one morning just found they no longer had access to a purchase they had made). This form of DRM, and any other measures that prevent customers from doing anything they would do with a physical book, will hold back this market. It was interesting to see that the Nook has a function whereby a digital book can be lent to a friend; on closer inspection it came as no surprise to find that this feature was restricted to the point of being useless.
Overall it's an interesting, but promising market. How quickly it matures will depend not only on technology and vision, but also on whether the players have learnt from past strategic mistakes of the other industries that have made a tentative transition to digital.
By M. Sumra, MBA Class 2010
But what are they fighting for? The market for education has to be huge - gone will be school bags overstuffed with books; everything on one, streamlined device just makes sense. But beyond education, the picture becomes a little murkier. Is there a huge market for standalone book readers, for an additional device? Possibly not. An intuitive solution would be the merger of the laptop and book reader into an all in one solution tablet computer. Carrying around a smartphone and tablet means that in two devices I have a phone, GPS, PDA, computer and all of my books and documents; that sounds like a powerful value proposition. But the technology is not there yet, and it may be a while before a vendor is not only able to amalgamate all of these devices, but also wrap them up in an interface that is intuitive and productive (and there is still the issue of colour which would be a requisite for textbooks - current eReaders are black and white). A smartphone, a laptop AND a book reader, is just one device too many.
But there are other barriers other than technology. One of the reasons behind the rush to enter this nascent market is the drive to establish a digital book ecosystem and capture as much market share as possible. Businesses in this sector see the iTunes model and understand the overwhelming power it has given Apple within the digital music sector. And yet those very same companies, particularly Amazon (which usually has a good feel for its customers needs), are making the same mistakes as the music industry when it was dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age. One fact not mentioned enough is that buying a Kindle book does not give you control over it; the book sits on Amazon's servers, and should Amazon wish to delete it, they can (as they did recently with some of George Orwell's books over a copyright dispute - customers were not consulted, and one morning just found they no longer had access to a purchase they had made). This form of DRM, and any other measures that prevent customers from doing anything they would do with a physical book, will hold back this market. It was interesting to see that the Nook has a function whereby a digital book can be lent to a friend; on closer inspection it came as no surprise to find that this feature was restricted to the point of being useless.
Overall it's an interesting, but promising market. How quickly it matures will depend not only on technology and vision, but also on whether the players have learnt from past strategic mistakes of the other industries that have made a tentative transition to digital.
By M. Sumra, MBA Class 2010
Saturday, 17 October 2009
Google Waving
It's been one week since I received my invitation to Google Wave, and I must say that due to the lack of contacts who are using this wonderful platform, my experience has thus far been limited to experimentation with the interface and a couple waves sent back-and-forth with two friends. I will not dwell much on all the features available in Wave, as I am sure you will be able to read extensive reviews in the myriad articles circulating the blogosphere. You can even watch the 100-minute video presentation of Google Wave on YouTube, even.
What I would like to focus my review, however, is on the practicality and potential use that I see from this product. I am not a blogger, nor am I a social media fanatic, yet I still see myself getting hooked to Wave once it goes mainstream and all my friends and family start using it. The reason is quite simple, really. It brings everything that is communication for me under one roof. I have followed Google's moves very closely since 2002, and I remember when it stated its vision on communication when it launched Gmail in 2004. Back then, Google said that its goal--as part of organising all the world's information--was to become the world's communication hub. Of course, this vision seemed rather lofty at the time, after all Google had just launched Gmail and its success was yet to be proven.
Fast-forward five years, and you have a much-evolved Gmail service, a Google Docs platform that is increasingly eating market share away from Microsoft Office, Picasa Web Albums, YouTube, Google Maps, and Google Voice. All of these have one thing in common: they enable people to create and share content, whether it be emails, documents, photos, videos, driving directions, or voice conversations. Google had, rather inconspicuously, built all the pieces of its grand "communications hub" vision. The only thing left to do was to integrate them all under one common platform. Enter Google Wave.
OK, so Google has managed to centralise all our communication and collaboration needs under one roof. It will certainly simplify our lives and blur once and for all the lines between online and offline, voicemail and email. Yet where I think it will have the greatest impact is in the enterprise and education domains. Companies and universities both large and small can build their entire messaging and collaborative software architecture on Wave, leapfrogging archaic systems such as Blackboard, Exchange, LotusNotes, and Outlook (actually, Gmail already leapfrogs the latter two). Moreover, the fact that it an open, federalised platform means that it has the potential to scale very fast and connect with social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, ERP systems such as Oracle and SAP, and even interactive games. The extent to which Wave can scale is really only limited by the extent of our own imagination. It truly has the potential to become the most indispensable utility of the 21st century (yes, even more than the mobile phone itself).
So, that's my take on Wave. Sure, the look and feel of the product is sleek and its HTML-5 underpinnings make you forget at times that you are working inside a web browser, and it will take time to get used to new features such as "playback" and "mute". But all those things are merely aesthetic. The true juice behind this product is the power it has to change the world of communication as we know it.
By Mariano Montefusco (MBA Class 2010)
What I would like to focus my review, however, is on the practicality and potential use that I see from this product. I am not a blogger, nor am I a social media fanatic, yet I still see myself getting hooked to Wave once it goes mainstream and all my friends and family start using it. The reason is quite simple, really. It brings everything that is communication for me under one roof. I have followed Google's moves very closely since 2002, and I remember when it stated its vision on communication when it launched Gmail in 2004. Back then, Google said that its goal--as part of organising all the world's information--was to become the world's communication hub. Of course, this vision seemed rather lofty at the time, after all Google had just launched Gmail and its success was yet to be proven.
Fast-forward five years, and you have a much-evolved Gmail service, a Google Docs platform that is increasingly eating market share away from Microsoft Office, Picasa Web Albums, YouTube, Google Maps, and Google Voice. All of these have one thing in common: they enable people to create and share content, whether it be emails, documents, photos, videos, driving directions, or voice conversations. Google had, rather inconspicuously, built all the pieces of its grand "communications hub" vision. The only thing left to do was to integrate them all under one common platform. Enter Google Wave.
OK, so Google has managed to centralise all our communication and collaboration needs under one roof. It will certainly simplify our lives and blur once and for all the lines between online and offline, voicemail and email. Yet where I think it will have the greatest impact is in the enterprise and education domains. Companies and universities both large and small can build their entire messaging and collaborative software architecture on Wave, leapfrogging archaic systems such as Blackboard, Exchange, LotusNotes, and Outlook (actually, Gmail already leapfrogs the latter two). Moreover, the fact that it an open, federalised platform means that it has the potential to scale very fast and connect with social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, ERP systems such as Oracle and SAP, and even interactive games. The extent to which Wave can scale is really only limited by the extent of our own imagination. It truly has the potential to become the most indispensable utility of the 21st century (yes, even more than the mobile phone itself).
So, that's my take on Wave. Sure, the look and feel of the product is sleek and its HTML-5 underpinnings make you forget at times that you are working inside a web browser, and it will take time to get used to new features such as "playback" and "mute". But all those things are merely aesthetic. The true juice behind this product is the power it has to change the world of communication as we know it.
By Mariano Montefusco (MBA Class 2010)
Sunday, 9 August 2009
Online Newspapers
News Corp's recent announcement of a complete subscription based digital strategy by 2010 seems to have generated a degree of excitement amongst commentators, based principally on the premise that if anyone can do it, News Corp can. And yet at this time that enthusiasm is grounded in very little substance. News Corp has not shown the same business acumen in the digital world as it has in the print one; MySpace is a prime example, as are failed attempts in the past to impose subscription models for news.
There is a danger here that newspaper people are looking at other models such as mp3 and online video, and rationalizing that if people are willing to pay for those, then they will be more than happy to pay for news on a per article basis. The FT seemed very pleased with itself last week, comparing it's proposed model favorably to iTunes. But there is one major flaw in this approach - a prosaic newspaper article does not hold the same value proposition as an mp3 track by my favorite artist. I will pay for music, which is something I will derive pleasure from listening to over and over again. Can the same be said for the headline article ('Briton May Hang for Killings in Baghdad') in the Sunday Times at this very moment? No matter how passionate I may be about news, and even if I were to pay whatever over-inflated price that will in the future be charged per article, I will never read that piece again. Even the most enthusiastic consumer will quickly realize that a per article model has a very poor value proposition. And add to that the fact that news is also available 24/7 on television, radio and on the Internet, the idea of paying for individual. articles on a pay as you read basis, already sounds DOA.
Some specialist publications such as financial papers will likely find a more willing subscriber base; though taking the FT for example, buying a physical paper will likely be a lot more economical than paying for every article one by one. And therein lies what will be a big problem with a model such as this; an online newspaper should be cheaper than the physical copy. This is one area where Murdoch and co. can actually learn from the experience of music execs; your customers know that online should be cheaper, do not take them for fools.
This does not mean that there are not going to be new business models out there that newspapers might be able to employ; they just don't seem to be coming up with them yet. The newspaper that institutes an appealing subscription strategy will not only profit from the viewpoint of revenue, but in a future world of closed digital newspapers, will likely also pull in new subscribers at the expense of the competition. These should be powerful incentives to get it right first time.
And then there is one last point. Perhaps a change in technology and the resulting availability of information, may mean that the model of a newspaper as a crucial vehicle for information is no longer a relevant one. Perhaps newspapers, as a mainstream entity, are going to go the same way as the telegram. What is for certain is that we will now in the next five to ten years.
By M. Sumra, MBA Class 2010
There is a danger here that newspaper people are looking at other models such as mp3 and online video, and rationalizing that if people are willing to pay for those, then they will be more than happy to pay for news on a per article basis. The FT seemed very pleased with itself last week, comparing it's proposed model favorably to iTunes. But there is one major flaw in this approach - a prosaic newspaper article does not hold the same value proposition as an mp3 track by my favorite artist. I will pay for music, which is something I will derive pleasure from listening to over and over again. Can the same be said for the headline article ('Briton May Hang for Killings in Baghdad') in the Sunday Times at this very moment? No matter how passionate I may be about news, and even if I were to pay whatever over-inflated price that will in the future be charged per article, I will never read that piece again. Even the most enthusiastic consumer will quickly realize that a per article model has a very poor value proposition. And add to that the fact that news is also available 24/7 on television, radio and on the Internet, the idea of paying for individual. articles on a pay as you read basis, already sounds DOA.
Some specialist publications such as financial papers will likely find a more willing subscriber base; though taking the FT for example, buying a physical paper will likely be a lot more economical than paying for every article one by one. And therein lies what will be a big problem with a model such as this; an online newspaper should be cheaper than the physical copy. This is one area where Murdoch and co. can actually learn from the experience of music execs; your customers know that online should be cheaper, do not take them for fools.
This does not mean that there are not going to be new business models out there that newspapers might be able to employ; they just don't seem to be coming up with them yet. The newspaper that institutes an appealing subscription strategy will not only profit from the viewpoint of revenue, but in a future world of closed digital newspapers, will likely also pull in new subscribers at the expense of the competition. These should be powerful incentives to get it right first time.
And then there is one last point. Perhaps a change in technology and the resulting availability of information, may mean that the model of a newspaper as a crucial vehicle for information is no longer a relevant one. Perhaps newspapers, as a mainstream entity, are going to go the same way as the telegram. What is for certain is that we will now in the next five to ten years.
By M. Sumra, MBA Class 2010
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
Movies and Metal Detectors
Further evidence that this industry really has lost the plot.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jul/14/mobile-phones-and-movie-security
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jul/14/mobile-phones-and-movie-security
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