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In-depth insight from Tim O'Reilly on lessons learned from Safari Books Online

By Andrew Savikas
November 2, 2009

"As I outlined above, Safari adopted a "cloud library" model rather than downloadable ebooks as its fundamental design metaphor. I thought it might be worthwhile to understand how we arrived...

""We had all the advantages and let it slip away"

By Andrew Savikas
October 1, 2009

Among the most honest assessments of the failure of newspapers to adapt to the Web comes from John Temple, former editor, president and publisher of the now-defunct Rocky Mountain...

Do the Math on Your Mobile Apps

By Andrew Savikas
September 29, 2009

One of my favorite sources of interesting reading material these days is Hacker News (follow them at @newsycombinator), and this week they pointed me to a piece from Derek...

Environment Variables: On Surplus, Scarcity, Fear & Greed

By Mark Sigal
August 18, 2009

I am big believer that markets gravitate between FEAR and GREED, and that industries are driven by core assumptions about the SCARCITY or SURPLUS of enabling resources. Think about the stock market in terms of the former (it's heavily outlook driven), and the evolution of computing, as afforded by the latter (i.e., the commoditization of processing, storage and bandwidth).

Does Digital Cannibalize Print? Not Yet.

By Andrew Savikas
August 6, 2009

One of the big risk factors publishers think about when it comes to digital books is that they will cannibalize print sales. Factor in the lower prices we're seeing for...

"Being wrong is a feature, not a bug"

By Andrew Savikas
July 1, 2009

A thoughtful piece from Michael Nielsen on the disruption of the scientific publishing industry includes a lot that's very relevant to other publishers and media companies. For example: In...

Built-to-Thrive - The Standard Bearers: Apple, Google, Amazon

By Mark Sigal
May 18, 2009

When you think of companies that are not only built to last, but rather, built to thrive - in good times and bad - what companies logically sit at the top of the pyramid? Equally important, what should be the criteria for assessing them? Let me propose a straw man for assessing the "Built-to-Thrive" bunch...

Apply Sparingly: Open Standards (and When to Use Them)

By Mark Sigal
May 8, 2009

The great thing about standards is that there are "so many to choose from." While it may be convenient to default to aphorisms like proprietary is evil, open is good, I am here to tell you that there are only three reasons to embrace open standards.

The Goodness of Artificial Milestones

By Mark Sigal
April 29, 2009

A friend of mine in startup-land had a really important meeting with a prospective partner. Knowing the one-shot nature of these things, he literally moved mountains in just a few days, achieving a transformational milestone for his fledging, early-stage company. How did he do it? Read on...

Zappos: If You Are Great at Something - Let It Go... (Or Resell It)

By Joshua-Michele Ross
December 22, 2008

I am fascinated by what I see as Zappos' ongoing evolution from a simple, online retailer to a leading online innovator. A few months back I wrote about Zappos pioneering what I called “Experience Syndication" with their Powered by Zappos (PBZ) service. In brief, PBZ syndicates the end-to-end value of shopping with Zappos - from the online store experience...

Online Communities: The Tribalization of Business

By Joshua-Michele Ross
November 12, 2008

Recently I spoke with Francois Gossieaux of Beeline Labs about the role of online communities in the enterprise. Francois has been evangelizing the learning gained from his recent study “The Tribalization of Business” (see here for the Slideshare presentation). The interview is broken into three parts. Francois is a great storyteller, bringing case studies in to support nearly every point....

A Star is Born? NY Times syndicates outside blogs but that's not enough

By Joshua-Michele Ross
October 7, 2008

Recently the New York Times announced that it will be syndicating content from three well-known blogs, Read/Write Web, Giga Om and Venture Beat. The New York Times is using these blogs as an extra-sensory organ; they can dial into what is happening in the tech sector (and particularly the West Coast with this trio) without allocating a lot of internal...

Customer Service is the New Marketing: Interview with Lane Becker

By Joshua-Michele Ross
October 2, 2008

The Internet changes the power relations between companies and customers. Social technologies like blogs, social networks, ratings and reviews etc. allow customers to share experiences; good and bad to the 1.4 billion people on the Internet. Zappos exemplifies the positive benefits of extraordinary customer service while Comcast shines a light on the perils of getting it wrong. Lane (co-founder of...

Getting Web 2.0 right: The hard stuff vs. the harder stuff

By Joshua-Michele Ross
October 1, 2008

I had a powerful conversation recently in Europe with one of the top executives of a major industrial company. They have 100K+ employees in over 50 countries. When he joined five years ago their business was struggling and in need of major transformation; their stock was at two dollars a share, they had ethics issues and product quality problems -...

Open beats Closed: Best Buy’s new APIs

By Joshua-Michele Ross
September 23, 2008

Welcome to Joshua-Mich�le Ross, who joins the Radar team with a focus on how Web 2.0 is affecting business strategy - Sara Winge Best Buy is a pioneer when it comes to unleashing the talent of their own staff; from the Loop Marketplace that allows employees to submit ideas for Digg-style ranking AND funding across divisions (for example an HR...