Last week, I noted that former Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun enrolled 160,000 students in an online computer science class. That inspired him to set up a new company, Udacity, to pursue online education. A new article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek adds some additional color to the story. Barrett Sheridan and Brendan Greeley answer a question many folks [...]
Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category
Online Education and Self-Driving Cars
Posted in Internet, Teaching, Technology, tagged Auto, Education, Google, Teaching, Technology, Wired on January 30, 2012 | 10 Comments »
Will New Technology Help People Escape the “Sports Tax”?
Posted in Microeconomics, Technology, tagged Microeconomics, Pricing, Sports, Television on December 16, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Today’s exercise in everyday economics: Brian Stelter and Amy Chozick making the case that cable and satellite TV subscribers are paying a “sports tax” (ht: Jennifer R.). Writing in the New York Times, they say: Although “sports” never shows up as a line item on a cable or satellite bill, American television subscribers pay, on average, about [...]
More on Apple’s Skill at Operations
Posted in Business, Technology, tagged Apple on November 7, 2011 | 1 Comment »
A few weeks ago, I discussed a Quora thread explaining “how Apple sends technology back from the future.” The gist is that Apple is phenomenally good at managing its supply chain, particularly for innovative technologies that haven’t hit the market yet. Bloomberg BusinessWeek expounds on that theme in its latest issue, beginning with the story [...]
Netflix and the Benefit of Flip Flopping
Posted in Business, Technology, tagged Netflix, Sunk Costs on October 11, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, gave subscribers some good news yesterday: We are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs. This means no change: one website, one account, one password … in other words, no Qwikster. As a long time subscriber, I can only say Hallelujah. But I am [...]
How Apple Sends Back Technology from the Future
Posted in Business, Technology, tagged Apple on October 6, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Over on Quora, an anonymous author has a fascinating post about another dimension of Apple’s and Steve Jobs’ brilliance–managing its supply chain: Apple has access to new component technology months or years before its rivals. This allows it to release groundbreaking products that are actuallyimpossible to duplicate. Remember how for up to a year or so [...]
Groupon’s Revenue Measure Shrinks More Than 50%
Posted in Business, Technology, tagged Accounting, Business, Groupon, Internet on September 24, 2011 | 3 Comments »
About a month ago, I remarked on Groupon’s explosive revenue growth (and its equally impressive cost growth). The company revised its financial results yesterday, and the revenue picture looks less explosive. In the latest update of its S-1 registration statement, Groupon reported $393 million in Q2 revenues. That’s a remarkable figure for such a young company but a far [...]
Groupon’s Explosive Growth Continues … As Do Its Losses
Posted in Business, Technology, tagged Business, Groupon, Internet on August 11, 2011 | 7 Comments »
Daily deal leader Groupon continues to grow its revenues at a jaw-dropping pace. According to its updated S-1 filing, the company sold $878 million in Groupons in the second quarter, ten times more than a year earlier: However, costs have been exploding too. Groupon spent almost $1 billion in Q2: Put it all together, and Groupon has been losing [...]
Groupon’s Explosive Growth
Posted in Business, Technology, tagged Business, Groupon, Internet on June 2, 2011 | 3 Comments »
We’ve all heard the rumors that Groupon is the fastest growing company ever. Today it finally opened its books in its preliminary filing to go public. Wow. In the first quarter of 2009, the online deal company mustered only a quarter of million in revenue. In the first quarter of 2011, it brought in almost $650 million. Wow. Only [...]
The Attention Deficit Society
Posted in Internet, Life, Technology, tagged Internet, Technology on May 4, 2011 | 5 Comments »
One highlight of the Milken Global Conference was an excellent panel discussion of how new communication technologies are changing the way that people think and interact. Moderated by the amusing Dennis Kneale of Fox Business, the panelists were: Nicholas Carr, Author, “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains” Cathy Davidson, Ruth F. [...]
Why Free Is a Bad Price
Posted in Internet, Microeconomics, Technology, tagged Apple, Instapaper, Internet, Pricing on April 29, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Marco Arment is the brains behind one of my favorite apps. Instapaper allows you to store articles off the Web for later reading; very useful, for example, when I am surfing and come across an article I want to share with my students or use in a future blog post. And the editor of Instapaper periodically shares excellent reads that I might [...]
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