Lesenswerte Analysen und Hintergrundberichte zu aktuellen Entwicklungen:
- For Facebook Europe is growing slowlyReuters: Exclusive: Facebook earns 51 percent of ad revenue overseas – executives: "While Europe is growing slower than the United States, the Asia Pacific region is ahead and a focus for Facebook."
- “SpaceX founder files with government to provide Internet service from space”The Washington Post: "The plan calls for launching a constellation of 4,000 small and cheap satellites that would beam high-speed Internet signals to all parts of the globe, including its most remote regions. Musk has said the effort “would be like rebuilding the Internet in space.”If successful, the attempt could transform SpaceX, based in Hawthorne, Calif., from a pure rocket company into a massive high-speed-Internet provider that would take on major companies in the developed world but also make first-time customers out of the billions of people who are currently not online."It is hard to overstate how large a business this could be.It is the kind of ambitious projects (don’t do it, don’t say ‘moonshot’) that is lacking in Europe.
- Spotify: 20 Mio. zahlende Abonnenten, 75 Mio. Nutzer, 3 Milliarden $ an Musiker ausgezahlt
- Apple Music ab 30. Juni auch in Deutschland verfügbar
- Spotify sammelt 526 Millionen $ bei Bewertung von 8,5 Milliarden $ ein
- Facebook With Messenger First Company After Google To Hit 1 Billion Downloads On AndroidTechCrunch: "Only two companies have apps with over 1 billion Google Play downloads, and the other is Google."Facebook, the mobile wild card.
- Windows Phone grows in European marketsInteresting statistics from market analyst Jan Dawson on Twitter: Installed base is still low in Europe, even in markets like Italy, but if these numbers stay up this could look very different in a year or two.
- “advantages of a multifunction device are obvious, the advantages of a multifunction app aren’t”Dr. Drang: "The elevator pitch is that Apple Music is three things, an attempt to tie it to the 2007 introduction to the iPhone. But while the advantages of a multifunction device are obvious, the advantages of a multifunction app aren’t. The App Store’s success is largely based on tightly focused apps, not sprawling suites."
- Apple Music and the question wether Apple can still say “No”Ben Thompson about Apples Tim Cook saying that Apple Management never just adds things for the sake of them but says constantly “no” to stay focused: "“That” sure sounds like Apple Music: there is this (streaming music) and that (curated lists) and this (BeatsOne radio) and that (Ping Connect) and no cogent thread to tie them together beyond the assumption that Apple must do a music service because that is what they do. That’s what big companies do.Imagine an alternate reality where the Watch had the exact same Watch face functionality (including complications), the exact same notifications and communications capabilities, the exact same performant Apple apps, the exact same unexpectedly strong battery life, but no apps beyond a promise they were “coming soon.” Surely reviewers would gripe, but with a “It’s already great, and it’s going to get better” sort of vibe. Yet Apple couldn’t bring themselves to say “no”."Maybe it’s time for Cook to spend less time talking about how “the management team of Apple would never let that happen” and make absolutely sure that a loss of focus is not, in fact, happening."
- Helsinki’s free, fast city-wide Wi-Fi network vs. Germany’s lack of public Wi-FiQuartz on Helsinki’s free, city-wide Wi-Fi network: "The result is not necessarily blanket coverage, but wherever there is a building or space controlled by the city, there is Wi-Fi coverage. And it isn’t particularly expensive. Otranen says the cost is included in overall maintenance of the city’s internet and is not broken out separately, though Simo Volanen of Helsinki’s IT department estimates that the outside base stations cost some €40,000 to buy and install ($45,000) and have an annual maintenance cost of about €4,000. This does not include the cost of running the network, which Helsinki does for its own purposes in any case.The reason Helsinki is able to do this, and London or New York are not, is partly down to the way Finland is run. Finnish cities have tremendous power, including powers of taxation. Helsinki residents pay a municipal tax of 18.5% of their income in addition to national income tax. Finnish cities have the usual powers—streets, rubbish collection—but also handle things like healthcare, education, and cultural institutions. That means that their municipal footprints are much bigger than London’s, for example, where city authorities have fewer day-to-day responsibilities."
- Newspapers “original sin” myth Revisionist online journalism history and the ‘original sin’ myth | yelvington.com: "I’ve written about this “original sin” notion before. The most charitable thing I can say about it is: This is bullshit.I was there. Here’s what really happened.Before the World Wide Web, there were dozens of newspapers online, and with maybe one or two exceptions they attempted to charge for access to content. Dave Carlson’s Online Timeline should be required reading for anyone who wants to opine about this topic.(..)But it wasn’t newspapers leading that land rush. It was everybody else.
Newspaper companies actually intended to implement the old paid-content model on the new Internet, and went so far as to form a consortium called New Century Network.
(..)
The World Wide Web wasn’t about newspapers. It was about everything, and in the big picture of everything, journalism – online or not – is a tiny little sliver.
(..)
The Internet was a mammal appearing at the end of the age of dinosaurs. People with big ideas were creating big things, people with little ideas were creating little things, and people with no ideas were complaining about the Internet."
It is funny how the exact same bullshit gets published in German newspapers and on their websites to this day.
- Why large US companies might become a regular exit option now for Berlin startups
Philip Moehring makes a few arguments, among them this:
"The amount of offshore capital large companies have, with repatriation costing anywhere between 20–40% in taxes. This is like a discount on the exit amount."Very good point.
Die Linktipps gibt es immer Donnerstags. Sie können auf Twitter und auf App.net abonniert werden.