The Gong Show - Latest Comments

Re: Smacks Forehead Part I

happy-ex-vc — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 02:02:28 -0000

Do you have to know anything about real estate when you buy your own house?

The criminal complaint against Governor Blageyovich makes a number of references to Tony Rezko, a convicted fundraiser who also raised money for the Obama campaign and who, on the same day that Obama bought his beautiful South Side Chicago home in June 2005, purchased property from the same owner right next door.

Two individuals who work together, on the same day, bought a property from the same owner, right next door.

Of *course* it's just a coincidence.

Holy Charles Rangel!

Re: Disqus Comments

Ghislain — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:13:50 -0000

I like disqus

Re: Retire This Analogy

andrewparker — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 17:58:01 -0000

touche!

I love that word.

In all seriousness, I hear you, and agree with much of what you say. My
rant is probably too much informed by my own behavior from which I
extrapolate to all consumers too broadly.

Re: Retire This Analogy

Ian — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 17:48:08 -0000

I disagree for several reasons.

1. "Users expect software, music, and other digital goods and services to be free because they know it costs zero to copy and distribute the digital goods to them. Users expect to pay the marginal cost of a good, especially when it created for the purpose of being distributed at mass scale."

I understand the point you are getting at, but to presuppose that users "know it costs zero to copy and distribute the digital goods to them," and that that is their main motivation to demand priceless goods, gives the average consumer too much credit. I know that the marginal cost of me attending the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the SF MOMA is 0 (much more than I know the marginal cost of my software), but I would venture to say that no consumer would demand free-admission based on this knowledge. I admit that I used your membership card to get in free anyway, but that is neither here nor there.
There is very little actual research done on the topic; the closest thing I've found is a study done at the Chicago GSB which found that consumers felt more comfortable stealing items with lower marginal costs, than those with high marginal costs (i.e. I'll steal digital music, but not a diamond). An argument for marginal cost pricing for digital goods might be that enforcement is too ineffective or expensive to charge any other price but 0.

2. Marginal cost pricing is an hypothetical situation, created by economists to isolate offsetting influences, kind of like learning physics in the absence of friction:

"One was a model of "perfect competition," a model in which there are enough buyers and sellers that no individual can influence price; when information and transaction costs are zero, prices in this model fall to marginal cost.
Such models have some explanatory power. They help us isolate factors that influence the tendency for prices to approach cost over time in real markets. However, the models were not intended as a normative model of what the world ought to look like. If perfect competition obtained in the real world, economic activity would grind to a halt, because no seller could profit from selling."-- Solveing Singleton .

3. (And I've borrowed from Singleton's wording generously, though I have similar thoughts) Marginal cost pricing does not take into account dynamic and repeated interactions between producers and consumers. Marginal cost pricing is a useful static concept, but fails to take into account "what pricing structure is needed to support future creativity in a real economy where events are spread out over time and where investors observe what happens to past investments."

4. I am a firm believer that if pricing were to equal marginal cost, the this would halt the production of new ideas. In effect what is happening with some free electronic goods, like Gmail, is that while the good is being provided for free to the consumer nominally, Google is obtaining an economic benefit from visits, access to keywords, brand development, and end-user exposure to its targeted adds. While the price to me as an end-user might be zero, Google would not offer this good if it were not monetizing it else where. The advertisers are paying for my Gmail; the price is certainly not 0.

Re: Google Chrome

Lara — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:37:49 -0000

I'm really curious about this new browser... I usually use IE cause the graphic is better for me than Firefox, but I know that for the speed and in generally Firefox is better. Now I'm working for the graduation and I don't have time to learn about Chrome but I think that in future I will try it.

Sorry for my English, I'm trying to improve, cause I'm Italian. I found your weblog, because I'm searching for Stanford's blog for my graduation test. I think your blog is well done and maybe it could be interesting for my study.

Re: Google Chrome

kenberger — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:50:09 -0000

A browser life w/out adblock plus is not a browser life worth living.
That's the deal killer for me.

But given that Chrome is all about being a web app environment, it's a sure thing that add-ons and a whole lot more will come, and I can't wait cuz this is an excellent app, even in beta.

Re: Google Chrome

andrewparker — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 09:03:11 -0000

Ha, I bet you thought Thanksgiving was about turkey and mashed
potatoes. How silly. The holiday actually celebrates when the pilgrams
brought Firefox 0.01 alpha to the Indians as a sign of peace.

Re: Snow Crash in Wood

andrewparker — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 08:57:09 -0000

Thanks, yea. He does an excellent job making sure that rabid fanboys
like me can't reach him. I don't blame him for it at all. Otherwise
he'd be up to his eyeballs in DeviantArt-esque fanatical art ;)

Re: Google Chrome

ceonyc — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 08:55:05 -0000

My parents are still making their way out of the AOL client software. IE would be a start for them.

Re: Snow Crash in Wood

brendano — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 03:55:17 -0000

amazing. you should send this to neal stephenson, who seems to enjoy mashing together unlikely mediums ... his writing with pen and paper being like your virtual reality -> 20th century book cover -> wood carving .... or so

Re: Google Chrome

patrick — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 18:40:47 -0000

i'm willing to try it out just to see if it works more efficiently than FireFox... if it's faster than Firefox, has tabs and isn't IE, then it should be perfect

Re: Google Chrome

media boy — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 18:40:01 -0000

i'm willing to try it out just to see if it works more efficiently than FireFox... if it's faster than Firefox, has tabs and isn't IE, then it should be perfect

Re: Google Chrome

David Gerard — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:38:45 -0000

"We are so, so happy with Google Chrome," mumbled Mozilla CEO John Lilly through gritted teeth. "That most of our income is from Google has no bearing on me making this statement." - http://notnews.today.com/?p=57

Re: Snow Crash in Wood

andrewparker — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:19:20 -0000

Did you find the online panel db?

Re: Snow Crash in Wood

Kayvon — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:32:03 -0000

checking out my and my brother's panels is one of my favorite activities when i'm back on campus. -Kayvon

Re: Snow Crash in Wood

andrewparker — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 10:58:20 -0000

Scraped. Nice pun.

Andrew

Re: Snow Crash in Wood

naveen — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 10:50:48 -0000

wow, that's some great detail. did you (and other students) have to learn this skill before graduation - or did you just "scrape" by?

Re: App Store is a Solution to The Penny Gap

andrewparker — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 09:50:08 -0000

Great idea. You listening Bezos?

Re: App Store is a Solution to The Penny Gap

Lee Semel — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 03:08:38 -0000

This may be an obvious question, but why could an online store that nearly everyone shops at (Amazon) not set up a similar system for use by web app developers? Let developers add a simple "pay" widget to their apps that uses 1-click. Amazon would handle all payment processing, subscriptions and chargebacks, provide an online store interface similar to the iTunes store but for web apps, and take a cut of the payments. This would fit in nicely with all their other services for developers. Amazon Simple Pay doesn't quite do this because users must go through several screens in order to make a payment, and there's no central repository of all the web apps that will encourage them to try and buy.

Re: LinkedIn Bug: People You May HUH?!

drivingsouth — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 04:37:31 -0000

I recently tried to import gmail contacts. FRom that point on linkedin tries to tell me that i might know someone to whom i sent a mail to (received as well? not sure). If that may be the case often, not all emails i send are to persons i know (for instance that happens with job applications sent by email).

Re: Twitter Media Properties

aweissman — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 18:34:32 -0000

Some things I found (and use):

*for coffee lovers, http://twitter.com/gimmecoffee - announcements and short coupon windows
*http://twitter.com/tweetmachine scans twitter for the most twittered-hypemachine tracks

Re: TwitterSnooze

ryangraves — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 23:39:25 -0000

Andrew- First thanks for checking out http://ryanagraves.com, hope you enjoyed! Second, I love this idea. There is so much of an information overload sometimes that being able to automatically put it on hold for a bit with a scheduled "info wake-up" would be such a treat. Great thought!

Re: Smacks Forehead Part I

ppearlman — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 08:24:35 -0000

http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives...

Re: Smacks Forehead Part I

Leonard — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:35:17 -0000

Do you actually want the president with a crack berry and PC on his desk so he can waste the time we all do browsing on the web?

Does the president need to know about how GMO to direct farming policy... You can;t find a guy that knows about everything, there will always be gaps.

Re: Smacks Forehead Part I

ppearlman — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 08:47:52 -0000

stevie wonder wrote wonderful 'visual' lyrics even tho blind.. nevertheless, mccain sad excuse for candidate...

The Gong Show - Latest Comments

Re: *Smacks Forehead* Part I

Re: Disqus Comments

Re: Retire This Analogy

Re: Retire This Analogy

Re: Google Chrome

Re: Google Chrome

Re: Google Chrome

Re: Snow Crash in Wood

Re: Google Chrome

Re: Snow Crash in Wood

Re: Google Chrome

Re: Google Chrome

Re: Google Chrome

Re: Snow Crash in Wood

Re: Snow Crash in Wood

Re: Snow Crash in Wood

Re: Snow Crash in Wood

Re: App Store is a Solution to The Penny Gap

Re: App Store is a Solution to The Penny Gap

Re: LinkedIn Bug: People You May HUH?!

Re: Twitter Media Properties

Re: TwitterSnooze

Re: *Smacks Forehead* Part I

Re: *Smacks Forehead* Part I

Re: *Smacks Forehead* Part I

Re: Smacks Forehead Part I

Re: Smacks Forehead Part I

Re: Smacks Forehead Part I

Re: Smacks Forehead Part I