I was out with Josh Grotstein–CEO of Motionbox–last week, and got to talking about how the inefficient market design of our current ad exchanges saps liquidity. OK, maybe I was talking about it. Possibly I was ranting*. Josh wisely changed the subject to an episode of 1987’s Max Headroom, featuring the first vision of an […]
On Regulation and Innovation in the Financial Industry
Yesterday President Obama said We started taking shortcuts. We started living on credit, instead of building up savings. We saw businesses focus more on rebranding and repackaging than innovating and developing new ideas that improve our lives. But contrast that with this, from November of last year: The Securities and Exchange Commission this week issued […]
Why Bankers Will Continue to Make Just as Much as They Used To
I can understand the brouhaha over banker pay. Bankers make a lot of money. And the seeming unwillingness of the banks to lie low on the compensation front for even a quarter or two makes me wince. Case in point, this New York Times article: After Off Year, Wall Street Pay Is Bouncing Back Even […]
There’s lots of bad economic news, so much that not much of it breaks through the clutter for me anymore, but this did: Tufts accepts 26 percent of pool, suspends need-blind admissions: The admissions office … stopped practicing a need-blind admissions policy toward the tail end of the process, a decision that affected five percent […]
New York Times Profitability Solved
What they Want, What they Need
Reading the comments on Saul Hansel’s NYT piece, An Icon that Says They’re Watching You. The two knee-jerk responses to advertising appear in the first few: #3: “Make a great product and people will seek you out and buy it. The market research dollars should be for learning what people truly want – not what […]
Supply of What?
Why are online CPMs so low? Why is the reader of an article on NYTimes.com worth a third of the exact same person reading the exact same article on paper? Dumb question. Everyone know that CPMs are low because there is an excess of advertising inventory: supply and demand. This can’t be true. Let’s say […]
50,000,000,000 $20 Bills
Geithner thinks he’s busy now? Wait until a 4,000 mile high stack of twenties lands on his desk, awaiting his signature. The Fed’s decision to print up a trillion dollars of crisp new greenbacks just a few days after we assured China that their investments in US debt were sound is kind of funny. Slapstick, […]
Echoing Green: Funding Social Entrepreneurs
I volunteer some of my time to Echoing Green, who provide seed funding and support to social entrepreneurs. EG’s approach is to find social entrepreneurs who take a businesslike approach to building sustainable organizations aimed at creating social change. I met them a few years ago and they asked me to be a reader: to […]
Bigger Ads Roundup
A lot of disagreement on the new OPA initiative. Only Jonathan Mendez seems as enthusiastic as I am. Some other views below (I should note, if my comments seem snarky, that these are the views of people whose opinions I follow and respect.) Why Super Banners are Lame, Noah Mallin on SearchViews. Let’s face it, […]