Monthly Archives: June 2011

It’s all about accountability

June 26, 2011 – 8:31 pm

TweetCompared to Anglo-Saxon journalism standards, French practices are regrettably lax. It doesn’t mean that France doesn’t have remarkable writers, editors or medias; but, too often, their practices are just sloppy. Here, journalists abuse anonymous quotes and are too cozy with their sources. Papers are insufficiently edited, reporters routinely go after a story with a pre-defined [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Posted in journalism | Comments (11)

Google’s SOE (Strategy of Everything)

June 26, 2011 – 8:31 pm

TweetAs a Venture Capitalist, I occasionally hear entrepreneurs lay out a Strategy of Everything, a plan to be all things to all people. (SOE rhymes with TOE, the Theory of Everything, the Holy Grail of mathematical physics, only less attainable than the sacred object…) In practice, “all things to all people” invariably becomes too many [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (33)

Losing value in the “Process”

June 19, 2011 – 7:07 pm

TweetDigital media zealots are confused: they mistake news activity for the health of the news business. Unfortunately, the two are not correlated. What they promote as a new kind of journalism carries almost no economic value. As great as they are from a user standpoint, live blogging / tweeting, crowdsourcing and hosting “experts” blogs bring [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Posted in journalism, online publishing | Tagged , | Comments (22)

RIM: What Did You Know and When Did You Know It?

June 19, 2011 – 7:07 pm

TweetYou’re under oath. The opposing attorney asks you: What did you know and when did you know it? Big Trouble. The legal eagle already knows the answer, that’s the basic rule: Only ask questions you know the answers to. You’re about to incriminate yourself. This is what Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, RIM co-CEOs, are [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in hardware | Tagged , | Comments (15)

Jazz Is not a Byproduct of Rap Music

June 12, 2011 – 7:26 pm

TweetDefining article as a “luxury or a byproduct” as Jeff Jarvis did last month, is like suggesting jazz is secondary to rap music, or saying literature is a Deluxe version of slamming. Reading Jarvis’ Buzz Machine blog is always interesting, often entertaining and more than occasionally grating. His May 28th blog post titled The article [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Posted in journalism | Tagged , | Comments (17)

iCloud: How vs. What

June 12, 2011 – 7:19 pm

TweetOnce a year in San Francisco, Apple summons its third-party application engineers to the World Wide Developers Conference. Since Steve Jobs’ return to the company the event has grown in attendance and importance. One turning point was the 2002 introduction of OS X, a genuinely modern Mac OS, built on a Unix foundation. Then there [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in mobile internet | Tagged , , | Comments (26)

Analyzing the metered model

June 5, 2011 – 5:03 pm

TweetThe metered model deserves a closer look. One the dirtiest little secrets of the online media business is the actual number of truly loyal readers — as opposed to fly-bys. No one really wants to know (let alone let anyone else know). Using a broad brush, about half of the audience is composed of casual [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Posted in online publishing | Tagged , | Comments (31)

Transitions: The Nokia Way vs. The Microsoft Way

June 5, 2011 – 5:03 pm

TweetOne false step and you’re dead. Or worse: You’re the walking dead. This is what awaits CEOs who mismanage a product transition and allow the existing revenue stream to run dry before the promising new product shows up. This is known as the Osborne Effect, named after Adam Osborne, the prolific inventor, entrepreneur and writer, [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in hardware | Comments (20)