Versatile Amphibian

I think that participants in the TMT industry need to read widely in order to understand the present and future dynamics of the market. To that end, this post is a collection of the articles that have caught my eye. This week: dastardly Germans cloning web businesses, invisible hydrogen coming to your high street, twisted spectrum puts the mobile industry in a spin and the terrifying scale of EVERYTHING amazes New business models I quite like Ideo’s work; if nothing else, they offer a fresh perspective on tricky issues. In this short blog, they talk about new concepts for retail. I like the ideas, but in a land (the UK) of ridiculous high-street rents, it’s difficult to see many of them being practical. http://www.fastcodesign.com/1665882/ideo-offers-4-strategies-for-reinventing-the-retail-experience This is a fascinating article about a German company that routinely copies and exploits the models of US online businesses. All totally above board, but a great reminder of why in the Inte...

Nice interview with Martin Sorrell in the FT over the weekend where he argues that the valuations of online media companies defy economic sense. I heartily agree - Facebook in particularly seems to have attracted a "bubble mentality" amongst investors who should know better. The $50B valuation is ludicrous - my own estimates, based on past performance of the successful dotcoms, the addressable market for social media and what we know about Facebook's financial performance suggests an upper bound of $13B for the company. Time will tell whether this is bourne out by the market when (or if) Facebook finally IPOs. I personally feel that comparing them to Google is folly because of the position they occupy in the value chain and the proven strength of the Google team both historically and at present. We shall see.