I’m still easing myself back into my weekly blog after a
long absence. To that end, here’s a brief roundup of stories from the TMT
industry that caught my eye this week.
This week: Deep web trembles as Feds shutter Silk Road, Google’s
transformation into design leader, Facebook Wi Fi launches, 3D printers hit UK
high street, cold brew in the home finally a reality
Traditional business models
I like that Apple outdoes Google as Executives pick of the
most innovative companies – their design dictatorship is probably more
attractive to the average CEO than Google’s chaotic approach. I’d love to see
who made it into the long tail of the survey. Chances are that those are the
true innovators. http://www.businessinsider.com/most-innovative-companies-in-the-world-2013-9
Twitter has announced its IPO, initially for a fairly modest
$1Bn. Notable that it’s still loss making despite over 200 million users.
Trouble with Twitter is that it will be much more difficult to generate lots of
advertising space, although admittedly engagement is probably better (because
the ads are more difficult to avoid!). I’m undecided… http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/03/twitter-ipo-share-sale
Silk Road has been closed down. I suppose it was a matter of
time… http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24373759
…BitCoin prices have fallen rapidly – what value has an anonymous
currency got now the biggest market place for its use it gone… http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24381847
…but there’ll be dozens of other Silk Roads. The online
black market is here to stay. http://siliconangle.com/blog/2013/10/03/heres-two-silk-road-alternatives-where-you-can-still-score-drugs/
And of course you can still indulge your need for illegal
fun in Grand Theft Auto 5. The numbers for this title are staggering - $1Bn in
sales in the first 3 days. Wowsers! http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/03/gtav-by-the-numbers
New research from the London School of Economics suggests
that piracy isn’t in fact killing the music industry. If it was, it’s also the
slowest murder in the history of the world :/. This really is worth a read… http://www.scribd.com/doc/172985274/LSE-MPP-Policy-Brief-9-Copyright-and-Creation
New business models
A very insightful article on how Google has transformed
itself from a utilitarian software company into a design leader. http://www.fastcodesign.com/3016268/google-the-redesign
This kind of lightweight, online tool will be the death of
the big information providers. Their big corporate clients will just want
direct access to the data fire hose. Smaller companies would probably get just
as much from this kind of simple, cheap service. http://dataminr.com/
An interesting social news curation site. http://www.upworthy.com/
A more specialised news aggregator that’s aimed at US party
politics… http://policymic.com/
Facebook is offering US retailers a wi-fi service that
enables them to share information about the habits of their customers.
Interesting cross-over into the real world and less invasive than FourSquare et
al. http://www.fastcompany.com/3019103/fast-feed/have-a-store-facebook-wants-you-to-use-facebook-wi-fi
More African smartphones come to market, this time in
Nigeria. I wonder whether this is too late to market though – there are lots of
low cost options that carry foreign brand halos and in my experience, African
consumers like to believe that they’re buying quality. We’ll see. http://www.itnewsafrica.com/2013/10/race-on-for-africa-developed-smartphones/
Ten ‘innovative’ Parisian startups… Sitting in London I’m
chuffed by how massively un-innovative they all are J. http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/11/european-startups/paris
Technology
Just 5 years after the launch of the iPhone, its potential
as a hub for a range of sensing technology is now being realised. Check out
this Star Trek like sensor module… https://grandst.com/p/node
UK high street technology retailer is to start stocking 3D
printers. This technology is rapidly going mainstream – I don’t expect high
penetration because it’s still more of a chemistry set than an XBox, but
imagine ownership will steadily creep up over the next 3 to 5 years. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/02/dixons_stocks_3d_printer/
3D printers is still a tiny market though – 150 sold per day
according to some Gartner research. http://qz.com/132002/for-all-the-hype-fewer-than-150-consumer-3d-printers-are-sold-per-day/
Personal monitoring continues to grow and now there’s
consolidation in the web services that aggregate the data behind it. Runkeeper
owners Axel Springer have bought a 50% stake in rival runtastic for ‘an eight
figure sum’. The latter has 19m users, which is pretty impressive in a niche,
fragmented market. http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/01/axel-springer-takes-majority-stake-in-runkeeper-rival-runtastic/
Just for fun
I love this sort of attention to detail – a massive
infographic of all of the space ships from major sci-fi series. Geek-tastic! http://dirkloechel.deviantart.com/art/Size-Comparison-Science-Fiction-spaceships-398790051
You may laugh off the idea of cold brewing coffee at home as
hipster frivolity, but I love how Kickstarter makes all these niches
accessible. Thank God for the Internet. http://www.fastcodesign.com/3018352/wanted/kickstarting-a-coffeemaker-for-cold-brewing-at-home
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