Posted on May 31, 2009 @ 8:12 pm
Ironically, the business books I’m reading for personal pleasure, and the spiritual books are for school. Go figure…
- The Innovators Dilemma
- The Goal
- The Art of Learning
- Man’s Search for Meaning
- Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Posted on May 25, 2009 @ 10:01 am
Trent Reznor, Boots Riley and Tom Morello Kick Out the Jams
Posted on May 21, 2009 @ 8:54 pm
Today the career management center at Columbia Business School spoke with us about the job market. Over 72% of the class of 2009 has job offers and they expect this number to rise over the next few weeks. I was braced for a lower number, so I was impressed with this figure.
The career management center is also lining up on-campus interviews for next fall, but they expect the number of firms to drop by ~20% on top of the decrease from last year. They also expect many companies to push their recruiting off until the spring given the uncertainty in the market.
There were two interesting bits that I took away from today’s meeting:
* the job market always lags the economy, so even though unemployment is still increasing (although at a slower pace), it’s likely that most companies will delay their hiring needs until they are out of this recession. So when I graduate in May 2010, things could be on the up, but given the hiring lag, it’s just as likely to be a tough market.
* networking is key to scoring a job right now. I knew this was the case for me anyway (since I’m wasn’t planning to interview for the traditional jobs that recruit on campus).
Posted on May 12, 2009 @ 8:43 pm
This week begins my second semester as a J-termer at Columbia. Finals ended last Monday and I spent the time between semesters taking exemption exams for two of my remaining core classes.
I won’t know if I passed those exams for a few more days, but I felt like I had a good grasp of the material — even for the one course where I didn’t feel I was an expert, but was able to learn all the necessary content in about a day. I feel that if you can learn everything you need in a day or two of intense studying, then it’s not worth enrolling in a half-term class.
For anyone starting at b-school this year, I definitely recommend trying to exempt as many core classes as you can. A lot of people (myself included) initially thought that it would be good to take all the core classes, but to be honest, some of them can just skim the surface and not be worth your time. Especially if you can be taking electives that really interest you. So even if you aren’t an expert, you should study the sample exams and try to test out of classes that you aren’t passionate about.
Posted on May 11, 2009 @ 3:01 pm
Everyday there’s a new story (or six stories) about how the newspaper industry is in trouble and how nobody other than journalists are qualified to report on the news. Oh yeah, and that Google“”: and the government should be subsidizing the papers — and how we should all miss the feel of a newspaper in our hands. It’s getting to the point that it almost sounds like the government is going to act on this.
If the government seriously gives tax breaks for newspapers, who’s next in line? I can understand government involvement with things like keeping the financial system from collapsing, but we can’t save every single industry, can we?
What signal does it send when the government steps in to save every failing industry? Also, how could we depend on unbiased news when journalists are funded by the government? I like how David Carr said it today: “to leave our industry tin-cupping its way around a government it covers seems desperate and ill-advised: a cure that might be worse than the disease.”
Instead of complaining about the problems, I really wish people spent more time talking about new ideas. Not just a short-term solution, but new ways for people to produce, discover and read news.
Posted on May 10, 2009 @ 12:38 pm
Selling content or hardware?
Amazon’s digital book sales are tracking at 35% of print sales and Amazon’s taking 70% of newspaper subscription revenue … not to mention charging to read blogs. Clearly digital content sales provide a high margin for Amazon and are very attractive. But at the same time, Amazon is now in the hardware business with their $489 consumer electronic device. So is the Kindle going to be a success because of the wonderful digital content Amazon can offer, or is it going to be a success because it’s a great reading device? And where does Amazon stand to gain more?
Shaking up the textbook industry?
Many publishers are looking to the Kindle to provide a digital distribution platform to save them from declining print sales, but that’s probably not a motivator for textbook publishers. The textbook industry consists of a handful of large firms with a very lucrative and stable business model. Last semester I paid $320 for three textbooks that my professors required us to buy. I didn’t have a choice here and it’s likely I’ll have to spend another couple hundred dollars this semester. So why are textbook publishers on board with this?
The textbook space is rife for innovation. It’s clearly a model that isn’t aligned with the best interest of consumers. That’s why Chegg&EDATE raised $25 million from Kleiner Perkins to rent textbooks to students — and there are a few different companies raising money to create open source textbooks.
Innovation is necessary if textbook publishers want to maintain their current grasp on the market, which is exactly why they are testing this strategy with Amazon. But is it possible to make the transition to digital distribution and maintain your old model?
What can Amazon and publishers learn from the iPod?
If Apple’s any indicator of the tricky balancing act needed to sell both digital content and consumer electronics devices, publishers shouldn’t rely too heavily on the Kindle. In fact, the Kindle could even create the shift necessary to make books (especially textbooks) more readily available and affordable (gasp!).
If you look at iPod and iTunes sales, Apple has sold around 200 million iPods and around 6.5 billion songs. This is around 32 songs per iPod, or about 3 full albums per iPod. So what are people using 20 Gig iPods for if they’ve only purchased 3 albums from iTunes?
I’m not saying that the iPod resulted in people copying or downloading songs. But, once it became easier to share and acquire music, and once we had a great device for carrying all our music in our pockets, it was the perfect storm for the music industry (and for Apple’s iPod sales).
Will the Kindle force textbook prices lower?
Amazon and textbook publishers are piloting a program with a handful of universities to sell a limited number of textbooks. This is obviously a case of publishers dipping their toes in the water to see what happens next.
With a $489 retail price, the Kindle is pretty expensive for the average consumer that wants to read a few novels and a newspaper — but, it’s not a bad price to pay if you’re a student that’s forced to purchase hundred dollar textbooks each semester. In fact, a terrific textbook reading device like the Kindle could even lead to more students sharing their textbooks digitally and bypassing the need to purchase them at all (or as TechCrunch says, rampant piracy will be the Kindle’s savior).
To focus on the hardware or the content?
Amazon seems to be playing both strategies at the moment. Content is obviously their strong suit, but the hardware side is interesting as well.
The content strategy
Let’s face it, eBooks didn’t truly take off until the Kindle was announced. The Kindle got publishers comfortable with people downloading their books, while keeping them safe from piracy. This was a huge step, and now Amazon has to extend the Kindle to a platform that can be accessed from any device (my iPhone, laptop, Kindle or whatever). This is the ultimate content play.
I think the pricing on the content side still isn’t attractive enough to make the Kindle a device (or app) that everyone wants. This is a problem because it leaves the door open for a competitor to come in with lower prices (like Google Book Search) or a more complete product (like Apple). However, Amazon should be able to negotiate lower prices for e-books given their success with the Kindle to address this.
The hardware strategy
One of the challenges with selling digital content is that the alternative product is usually free. Just look at the music and film industry. If you don’t buy a song or tv show from iTunes, you probably listen to it or watch it free online. Fortunately books don’t have this problem right now, but if they did, Amazon’s Kindle store could be in trouble without a great device to go along with it.
On the flip side, I’m still not convinced it makes sense to have a separate reading device. For example, I used to have to carry my iPod in one pocket, my cell phone in another and my wallet would be squished in with either the phone or iPod. I see the same problem with a Kindle. Do I want to carry a laptop and a Kindle onto an airplane? What about when someone develops the next great tablet computer?
Posted on May 9, 2009 @ 6:40 am
This week Amazon released the new Kindle DX, with a large 9.7″ screen for reading books and news. The larger size screen size and revamped design actually make me want a Kindle now, but I’m not sure I’m ready to drop $500 on it.
One thing that caught my eye is the pricing of the newspaper content on the Kindle. The New York Times is charging $13.99/month and the WSJ is charging $9.99/month. This works out to $169/year for the Times and $119/year for the Journal.
The WSJ priced their Kindle subscription at the same price as their home delivery subscription ($119/year). WSJ.com is still their cheapest option at $104/year.
The NY Times on the other hand priced their Kindle subscription at $168/year, which is about 40% off of the 7-day home delivery price ($275/year) or 15% more than their 5-day home delivery price ($146/year). And you can of course read the NY Times for free online or on your iPhone.
I understand the WSJ pricing strategy (matching their home delivery price), but I’m really confused with the NY Times pricing. Why is it cheaper to get 5-day home delivery of the Times than to purchase their Kindle subscription? I’ve also read a lot of negative reviews of the NYTimes experience on the Kindle. The following review I found on Amazon sums up the major flaws:
On the minus side, comparing my print edition to the Kindle edition, I can see that the print edition includes stories that the Kindle edition does not. I’m really not sure quite what to make of this. A less ambiguous minus is the pictures, which (to use a technical term) really suck. They’re hard to make out, and there’s a max of one per story, no matter how many there are in the print version. Even worse, many of the pictures and – so far as I can see – ALL the charts and graphs are omitted. This hurts business coverage; I haven’t seen a Science Section yet, but I imagine this will be really painful.
It isn’t fair to charge such a high price for the NY Times if I can get it free online or get home delivery cheaper. And why in the world would they not include all the articles and all the charts/graphs? Are David Pogue’s articles excluded for a reason? This alone would discourage me from buying their Kindle subscription.
Posted on May 3, 2009 @ 6:53 pm
I dropped my iPhone on the street yesterday and the screen completely shattered. This was the first time I’ve ever broken a cell phone.
It’s too bad that the iPhone glass isn’t more durable. I found a few places that will slap on a new screen for $120-150, which is almost what a new iPhone costs with a 2-yr contract — but I don’t think I have any other options to get it fixed, right?
At least I have a G1 that I can use in the meantime (and I’m actually liking it so far).
Update: I sent off my broken iPhone to iResq with overnight shipping both ways to get a new screen installed. I was expecting them to take a few days to return my phone, but they provided a surprisingly fast 24 hr turnaround time.