Dominant design.

MTR has a good illustration for the state of mobile devices

It's also a good indicator of growth in the industry.

Winner-takes-all market in tablets (so far)

CNet reports on web traffic data originating from tablets. Because Apple is such a dominant force, the chart they refer to looks like this:

Note that Apple's iPad is not in the picture at all. When you add the iPad the chart looks like this:

Data Source: Chitika.

tags: market, domination, tool, synthesis, 4q diagram, business, model

A totally unexpected future.

Beginning March 1, Google will begin tracking users across most of its services: Gmail, Youtube, maps, search, and others. Some reactions to the new policy are quite surprising:

Jan 24, 2012. The Washington Post -- “There is no way anyone expected this,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of privacy advocacy group the Center for Digital Democracy. “There is no way a user can comprehend the implication of Google collecting across platforms for information about your health, political opinions and financial concerns."

It's hard to believe people are surprised with this move. Three and a half years ago, when Google introduced its own web browser, the writing was already on the wall. The brave new world with a different type of information asymmetries is emerging before our own eyes.

tags: business, model, domination, control, information,

Youtube is unstoppable.

Jan 23, 2012. VBeat -- The site has boosted its daily page views by 25 percent in the last eight months — and gathering over 4 billion page views per day, reports Reuters.

YouTube has made its video site accessible on more mobile devices, smart televisions, and streaming media set-top boxes (Roku, Apple TV, etc.).

Last week during its quarterly earnings report the company stated that its display ads sales are generating $5 billion in revenue due in large part to YouTube’s success.

Google has already started integrating Youtube with Blogger and Google+. The default video player on your mobile phone is most likely to by hooked to Youtube as well. In a few years, Microsoft's bundling of the Internet Explorer with its Windows OS will look like a child's play, compared to Google's mobile package of search, maps, videos, browser, social media, docs, apps, and much more.

Resistance is futile!

tags: internet, distribution, domination, packaging, business, model, mobile, advertisement

Google: Let's Do Some Evil!

VBeat complains about Google using its dominance in the search market to promote Google+. When Microsoft used a similar market dominance tactic to promote Office and other products on Windows, a lot of people in the developer community thought them to be evil. Now we see how corporate logic takes over good intentions on the Internet.

Jan 14, 2012. VBeat -- Google’s introduction of Google+ links into its search results is a big departure from the company’s previous more neutral approach to search, and it exposes the company to a huge risk.

By offering us only Google+ results, Google is forcing us to go outside of Google to find a fair representation for social results competitors like Facebook or Twitter. Those companies have larger usage, and therefore they have more relevant results.

Twitter is open, Facebook is semi-open, therefore, Google will be able to dominate search, including its social component. Will Facebook go the way Yahoo Maps went when Google started favoring its own mapping service? I don't think so. But the gloves are off in the social networking market. First, Google ripped off Facebook user interface, now they start favoring Google+ in search results. I won't be surprised if Android comes with Google+ as the default social option. Somehow they need to pay for this $12.5B Motorola acquisition. For all intents and purposes, Google is the new Microsoft.

Go 49ers!

tags: business, model, domination, commerce, platform, google, microsoft, social, networking

Mindshare: American innovators

Unless I missed something important, Henry Ford was considered the #1 American innovator during most of the 20th century. Walt Disney's share rises to the #1 spot with Disneyland and the emergence of television. The #3 innovator of the century seems to be Bill Gates.

I don't include Albert Einstein in this list because technically he is a scientist, not an inventor/innovator.  Nevertheless, it is interesting to see his share rising steadily over time.

Also, it is illuminating to compare an individual innovator to the thing he made popular.

tags: invention, innovation, information

The game [Halo 3] is crucial to Microsoft's efforts to establish dominance in the $30 billion global video game industry that has been dominated by Sony the past few years. Microsoft also competes against Nintendo's Wii console, which has enjoyed stronger sales this year.

Successful innovation creates non-linear growth effects. Cool products lead to more device sales and service subscriptions, which in turn create a larger installed base that feeds demand for additional games and services.

The game is a control point of the first type ( Geoffrey More calls it "unmatchable differentiation").
Installed based is a CP of the second type ( often called "platform").

Domination, i.e. a company's ability to dictate the pace of innovation in the industry is a CP of the third type.

ARM dominance

What's the most dominant company in the technology industry? Microsoft? Google? Intel? How about a 1,300-employee British company named ARM?

ARM has created the chip design that is at the center of virtually every mobile phone on the planet. About 98 percent of all mobile phones use at least one ARM-designed core on their motherboards, according to research from the analyst firm the Linley Group.
http://news.com.com/ARMed+for+the+living+room/2100-1006_3-6056729.html