Onlineservices
What took it so long? Now people can get an internationally-accredited MBA using the same platform they’re already so used to. The people behind this initiative claim that it didn’t take a lot of capex $$ to port their Moodle-based e-learning solution to an Facebook app. We’ve studied online education and while it is definitely not just about the underlying tech, going to Facebook can potentially help some schools leapfrog other schools’ sunken investments in proprietary technologies.
Three articles over a one-month period regarding Google. First, there was a “pessimistic” piece at Fortune magazine on July 29th with a decent, superficial review of the current state of e-marketing. Then the WSJ interviewed Eric Schmidt on August 14th, getting a highly controversial (and probably misunderstood) quote. Given the level of scrutiny GOOG faces, it’s clear that he needs a PR person next to him ASAP. Anyway, the CEO piece motivated an NYT op-ed by William Gibson on August 31st with a great summary of what Google is or could become.
Netflix is one of the most admirable cases around on corporate strategy AND execution. It shows how you can make billions out of simple things. That said, they have to kill a lion a year to stay ahead. Investment-wise, we never got to the point where we felt we knew enough to invest in them – and don’t regret not doing it.
Read more about Netflix doing the right things at the right time
The Wall Street Journal has a nice piece today on Google’s option repricing bonanza now that the stock is back to the US$ 500′s. Not a second too soon, not a bit exaggerated.
The Netflix Prize has been awarded and it’s a great example of crowdsourcing. But is such “open collaboration” a tool for every situation? How open do you really want to be? Some are looking at his and saying “hold your horses”. That’s always good advice in our book.
