Business 2.0’s Erick Schonfeld had an interesting comment this week on FineTune’s alternative business model to iTunes.
Finetune highlights the fact that we’re still a long way from knowing what the world of music is going to look like. It reminds us that as successful as the iTunes/iPod twins are we’re only a few years into […]

The blogosphere is becoming the wild west with ambushes and shoot-outs and not a sherriff in site. Now, Web 2.0 gurus like Tim O’Reilly are talking about a code of ethics for this new frontier.
I agree that if the Internet is to reach its promise we will need law and order. The blogosphere is […]

Joseph Epstein has a really interesting column in today’s WSJ about the tycoons that have ridden to the Chicago Tribune’s rescue.
Epstein says that if he were a cartoonist he wold draw Zell and his moguls in a motorboat, with Louis Vuitton luggage piled up, racing to board the Titanic. He laments at the end […]

This latest effort to create an iPod killer leads me to a caveat emptor for my new book coming out May 9 with Dick Schmalensee.
Many modern businesses have succeeded by adopting the catalyst business model: find groups that need each other and provide a platform where they can meet and exchange value. That may […]

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, columnist Alan Murray questioned whether Sam Zell is just the latest in a long line of people putting their wealth into an industry that may help them lose it.
As someone who grew up remembering a time when papers produced both a morning and an evening edition, observing the death spiral […]

Content is king according to Tom Hazlett in an FT.com article today.
While Tom makes some interesting points, I’m not so sure I agree. Sure, a lot of the advertising-supported media platforms have built up content portfolios that are valuable these days. And there are lots more ways to distribute the content–cable is looking to […]

In the latest sign of the wrenching changes taking place in the traditional media industry, Chicago real estate mogul Sam Zell is taking the Chicago Tribune profit in an $8.2 billion deal.
This media empire of newspapers and radio stations makes its living through a classic catalyst strategy: it entices people to come to its […]

A recent study questioned whether online video can make money since ad revenue is limited. That’s almost surely a temporary problem.
Smart online video sites are going to use the digital and interactive aspect of online video to develop an advertising platform that will quickly outpace free-television. Your history on online viewing not to […]