Borrowing an idea from Barry Ritholz, I've decided to periodically feature a "linkfest" on my site, listing the interesting articles I've come across in the previous few days, along with a brief description.
All these links are also available in my sidebar "On Murli's Radar" on the top-right of my blog homepage, are spliced into my site feed and also have a feed of their own.
Let's jump right into it.
- The Hidden Costs of Clicks is from Strategy+Business, the journal of Booz Allen Hamilton. Contains some good analysis about what sorts of businesses succeed on the Internet and why -- primarily linking this back to the cost-to-serve for different items. The article is also a little self-congratulatory ("The flaws in [Webvan's] economic model were highlighted in a Booz Allen Hamilton study more than a year before its collapse") but it's not a huge problem.
- Thinking in Web 2.0: Sixteen Ways contains 16 pointers for new Web 2.0 companies. This article is only about how to implement a good user experience and is not about how to monetise Web 2.0.
- Meet Your New Bankers explains how hedge funds are venturing into areas traditionally occupied by commercial banks. Also explains what these hedge funds are doing differently from their banking counterparts.
- When You Can't Earn An MBA (PDF) contains some good career advice, targeted primarily at those who want to get ahead without an MBA but equally applicable to those with one.
- Are VCs the Real Chasm In 2.0? suggests that venture capitalists are not necessarily the best people to help develop Web 2.0, perhaps because they don't understand it as well as other pet areas (such as semiconductors and enterprise software) or perhaps because of organisational weaknesses.
- Creators, Synthesizers and Consumers is written by a Yahoo! executive, where he argues that the world is overwhelmingly made up of consumers of media content, with creators and "synthesizers" forming a small minority. An interesting read, which has generated a lot of comments.
- Yahoo!'s counterproductive pyramid argues just the opposite. Everyone has the potential to be a creator given the tools to do so.
That's a diverse set of article (shows you how unfocused, ahem, widely read I am). Enjoy.
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