Strategy+Business had a good profile about Charles Handy (reg.req). Especially I was taken by his view where the current form of shareholder capitalism has to give away. Handy has been successfully predicting future changes in the biz environment in the past and this time we are going back to village society. E-lance is relating to the same issue: "The Dawn of the Elance Economy"
The Economist had a survey about TelCo industry a few weeks back. Great issue with analytical articles. Unfortunately their web-edition is no more free of charge.
Russian democracy seems to be more like a joke. A free market economy where all the roads lead to Kremlin, again.
Some ISPs are slower than the snail mail: consumers and businesses are receiving more than 3 weeks old emails and most of the mails have not simply arrived at all. Excellent for all those businesses who have sent out orders, offers, contracts and meeting confirmations ;-) Another example how vulnerable we are if a few things are not working: electricity blackout, email out, mobile network down...
FT reported how mobile payment is taking off in South-Korea. Credit card companies formed a syndicate that enabled mobile users to pay their purchases simply by showing their handset close by a payment terminal. The purchases will show up in your monthly credit card bill. Looking forward in the old continent any time soon...
An outlook for next ubiquity applications by Ventureblog. Check also the "Beauty Contests and Venture Valuations".
Hollywood turned into California - Arnold won.
Sony is innovating once again: PSX game & entertainment system will be launched soon in their home market, Japan. The set includes: a satellite TV tuner, DVD recorder, hard drive (vs. VCR) and a PlayStation 2.
University of California is going to release IRR figures from their private equity portfolio of top-notch VCs such as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital.
Small businesses are growing and hiring by BusinessWeek.
Some VCs have stated that there has not been enough 'good' startups to invest for in the last years. Today I heard that one of them was having their offering as 30% of your equity for €50k investment combined with some pretty nasty liquidation rules. No wonder the startup material has become so 'bad' these days...
Recent FT had a review of Samsung's SPHi-500 that combines Palm with a phone with clever looks. My Palm V is wearing out and this sounds like a good idea.
Moviemercials are coming as well as advergaming. I have been waiting this to happen while trying to help companies to make their first trials in the field.
Regulated radio frequences are a thing from the past. Obviously governments were making loads of money a few years back thanks to 3G-menia. Maybe this boom could be avoided in the future. Forget the regulation part... Andrew Lippman of MIT Media was talking about the same issue in the spring.
European VC market is recovering according to the recent Amsterdam gathering of some 400 private equity investors from 30 countries (reg. req.)
My own barometer is telling the same: this time the metrix is an amount of invitiations to various corporate parties and inaugurations... For a second I thought I was so popular but then the reality hit (unfortunately). It's the economy, stupid!
BTW, Yesterday Hyppönen of F-Secure was telling that the blackout in States was due to Lovsan virus - well the magnitude at least. Sounded like the usual conspiracy theories but you never know...