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Cdixon.org – chris dixon's blog

Cdixon.org – chris dixon's blog

Western Europe Dominates E-Commerce Western Europe leads the world in retail e-commerce sales. The UK is the most mature market, but other countries increasingly contribute to the region’s online buying clout. Europe’s dominance will continue through 2012, according to Collins Stewart, when online retail sales will cross the $200 billion threshold. “The population of online shoppers and buyers in the region is rising steadily,” said Karin von Abrams, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report “Retail E-Commerce in Western Europe.” This is chiefly the result of long-standing differences between Northern and Southern infrastructures and buying habits. “The recent economic downturn has compounded national differences,” said Ms. von Abrams. Online retailers may gain incremental revenue by appealing to buyers in the smaller European markets. Check out today’s other article, “Stepping Up to ROI Measurement.” The full report, “Retail E-Commerce in Western Europe,” also answers these key questions:

Reader - Israeli VC Blogs Google’s Chief Economist: “Newspapers Have Never Made Much Money Earlier today, Google chief economist Hal Varian gave a presentation to an FTC workshop on the changing economics of the newspaper industry. We all know that newspaper ad revenues have been falling off a cliff for years. Many media companies blame Google and are trying to put the genie back in the bottle with partial metered models for online news. Google is understandably on the defensive, trotting out Varian to paint an unemotional picture with as much data as he can muster. But the picture he paints is a dour one for print media. For instance, the chart above shows the decline of overall newspaper ad revenues. The collapse in print ad revenues is coming from two places: the overall ad recession of the past couple years and the shift to online news consumption. Varian concludes: “Newspapers could save a lot of money if the primary access to news was via the internet.” “The fact of the matter is that newspapers have never made much money from news,” says Varian.

QR Codes Anywhere The Collapse of Complex Business Models I gave a talk last year to a group of TV executives gathered for an annual conference. From the Q&A after, it was clear that for them, the question wasn’t whether the internet was going to alter their business, but about the mode and tempo of that alteration. Against that background, though, they were worried about a much more practical matter: When, they asked, would online video generate enough money to cover their current costs? That kind of question comes up a lot. It’s a tough one to answer, not just because the answer is unlikely to make anybody happy, but because the premise is more important than the question itself. There are two essential bits of background here. Here’s why. In 1988, Joseph Tainter wrote a chilling book called The Collapse of Complex Societies. The answer he arrived at was that they hadn’t collapsed despite their cultural sophistication, they’d collapsed because of it. The ‘and them some’ is what causes the trouble. Dr. Or it might not.

Thoughts Highlights Key Predictions for IT Organizations and Users in 201 STAMFORD, Conn., January 13, 2010 View All Press Releases This Year's Predictions Span 56 Markets, Topics and Industry Areas Gartner, Inc. has highlighted the key predictions that herald long-term changes in approach for IT organizations and the people they serve for 2010 and beyond. Gartner's top predictions for 2010 showcase the trends and events that will change the nature of business today and beyond. These predictions were selected from across Gartner’s research areas as the most compelling and critical predictions. The trends and topics they address this year speak to the changing balance of power and focus in IT. "As organizations make plans to navigate the economic recovery and prepare for the return to growth, our predictions for 2010 focus on the impact of critical changes in the balance of control and power in IT," said Brian Gammage, vice president and research fellow at Gartner. By 2012, 20 percent of businesses will own no IT assets. Mr. Contacts About Gartner Gartner, Inc.

Mobile Ad Spending to Gain Momentum Despite the rising number of mobile users and their increasingly sophisticated habits and mobile devices, advertising and marketing dollars flowing to mobile lag behind consumer usage of the channel. But long-term growth trends are positive. Spending on mobile advertising is set to increase rapidly over the next five years. eMarketer estimates that mobile ad spending, including messaging-based formats, will reach $416 million in 2009, increasing to $1.56 billion by 2013. “As an emerging advertising channel, mobile will continue to see lofty growth rates through 2013,” said Noah Elkin, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Mobile Advertising and Marketing: Change Is in the Air.” Like many research firms have done in the past year, eMarketer has revised downward its projections for mobile advertising in the US to account for the realities of the global economic downturn. Estimates for mobile ad spending span a broad range.

Lee Hower - Blog - The Institutionalization of Social Games... Get Used to It The Institutionalization of Social Games… Get Used to It July 29, 2010 The social games market has exploded onto the startup scene in the last three years. We all know about the remarkable growth of companies in this space, yet we tend to forget that Zynga was founded in July 2007. But the social games business has clearly entered a new phase of institutionalization. I don’t mean just consolidation via EA acquisition of Playfish, Disney acquisition of Playdom, huge strategic investments from Google & SOFTBANK in Zynga, and plus countless smaller consolidations. 1) Production Values Going Up – Every social game developer I speak to agrees that production values are increasing. 2) Low/No Cost Customer Acquisition Is Largely Gone – This has been true for some time (6-12mo), as social networks like Facebook changed the way in-game activity could be published to status feeds. 3) IP Starts to Matter – Disney didn’t buy Playdom for a huge user base or massive current revenue stream.

A VC The Future of Mobile and Mobile Marketing Q&A on Micro-VC Funds, With Someone Who Actually Invests In Them We’ve spent a lot of time lately discussing micro-VCs, including last week’s news on Floodgate ($73m fund close) and 500 Startups (new $30m fund being raised). So I spent some time discussing the phenomenon with Chris Douvos, who invests in mico-VC funds through his role as a managing director with The Investment Fund for Foundations: How long have you been investing in micro-VC funds, or super-angel, funds?? We’ve been active in this space since around 2005, and have invested over time in several of the archetypal managers. Who are those archetypical managers? Well, the main one is someone we actually haven’t given money to: Ron Conway. I love the O’Reilly AlphaTech guys, whose differential is that they’re leveraging the larger O’Reilly ecosystem. How do you define a micro-VC fund? I was at a Silicon Valley Bank shindig the other day, and people were talking about segmenting the space. The idea wasn’t necessarily to supplant VCs, but to be a value-added early processor of companies.

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