Insurance for everything: FareCast and WeatherBill predict the future
Web Startups Farecast and WeatherBill are the latest groups of companies to successfully marry predictive algorithms with tangible business models.
Intellectual property laws are becoming harder to enforce, and easier to avoid
Bittorrent Tracker ThePirateBay, has recently declared that it will be looking for a new country to operate out of. However, the news here is that ThePirateBay has elected to buy their own country instead of finding one with relaxed copyright laws.
They found SeaLand, a micro-nation who's sovereignty is in dispute, and launched the website BuySealand.com in order to try to raise funds to purchase it to the tune of 8 digits or more (10 million or more). However, the implication of such an action are clear: "We are the Pirate Bay, and we know what we are doing is illegal, so we are buying our own country to define our own laws". This is a far cry from their traditional defense of "We are not doing anything illegal".
The legality debate aside, the fundraising should be an interesting one to watch, with powerful social and ethical consequences if it succeeds.
Trend: Pay me money to blog, I'm a blogger
The past year has given rise to a number of services that offer advertisers the ability to pay bloggers to post about certain products or services. While there was initially quite a backlash by the blogging community over issues such as disclosure and forced-positive reviews, other companies have sprung up to make the service more ethical and transparent.
With traditional marketing failing, many advertisers are turning to bloggers, who have been proven to deliver excellent results through 'pseudo word of mouth marketing'.
PayPerPost.com, and ReviewMe.com are two of the most prominent players in this field.
Trend: Educational Entrepreneurism and the Personal MBA
If you haven't heard of Josh Kaufman's Personal MBA Program, then you've already missed the boat on the emerging trend of educational entrepreneurism. The Personal MBA is a collection of books that can increase your knowledge of business with a fraction of the cost of a full blown MBA, "all without setting foot inside a classroom".
Josh, after being motivated by marketing guru Seth Godin, created a manifesto detailing some 42 books and periodicals. He claims that by investing time and effort in using these resources, once can progressively develop a greater understanding of business and increase your effectiveness at work.
What Microsoft *should* have done with Zune
When we all first heard about Microsoft's Zune -- it sounded like a decent contender for an Apple iPod competitor. Big screen, video, pictures, wireless sharing of music plus rewards for people sharing music. It sounded like it was to good to be true (or to good to be Microsoft). It sounded like a big fat powerful idea.
But reality and corporate trenches are a bitch. Here is only some of what went wrong.
Pay Per Sale to Universal
Despite what most thing, the decision to pay Universal for each unit sold was a relatively good strategic move. This will force iTunes to renegotiate with potentially different terms with the Major labels. ("If Microsoft did it, then so can you").
However, take special note that giving Universal a piece of the pie indicated that both sides are in agreement that there is a relatively large amount of piracy that happens on these devices. Therefore, the payment is basically a levy in MP3 players which goes right into the labels pocket.
Wireless
