Talk:Strategy for Information Markets

'''This is a discussion page. If you want to make suggestions or otherwise discuss what form the book should take, this is the place for it.'''

Style guide
Cleared, so it doesn't get confused wtih the updated style guide, below. TDang (talk) 20:55, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Computer games topics
Based on this grouping there are three groups interested in writing about computer games. A member of one of the groups (the "Online game economies" group) contacted me saying they were uncertain of how to cover it, or whether there would be conflict with another computer game group. Here's a few thoughts I have. If you are in one of the three groups, you should feel free to add your own thoughts.
 * First, the group focusing on PlayStation 3 probably won't have a problem conflicting with the other groups. It might be worthwhile to keep an eye on what other groups are doing, anyway. Your group's goal should be to do a helpful case study of the PlayStation 3, it's history, competition, and Sony's strategies. You're being specific to illustrate more general points.
 * The group covering "Multiplayer games" has an extremely broad topic. I expect you'll have to narrow it down, and there are many ways you could do that. I'll wait for your first set of contributions before trying to steer you one way or another.
 * The group who were going to cover "online game economies"--depending on what the multiplayer game group concentrates on, there's room for you to develop this idea if you want. There has been interest from both academic economists and game developers in the in-game economies of MMO's. This can be interesting in its own right, but can also extend to interest in how to have in-game economies and real-world economies interact, with several game companies making their money from free-to-play models. Again, this might wind up overlapping with the other group, but perhaps not. It is also possible to change your topic if you think that's necessary. TDang (talk) 21:33, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

topics to add
Here's some thoughts on topics the book does not yet have, but could be worthwhile additions.
 * virality What does it mean, how can it be used as a strategy, is it internet-specific, etc.?
 * collectability Would Pokemon and such things be as popular as they are without the artificial constraints making for "rare" cards?
 * network externalities and fads
 * view source and standards ,
 * open-source as a strategy versus open-ness TDang (talk) 21:13, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * empirical approaches This is a potentially large area, and it's not clear if it should be treated as a singular "topic" or addressed in various places.
 * On the one hand, e-commerce allows for collection of a great deal of data, and even controlled experiments.
 * On the other hand, is it realistic to try to identify empirically where is critical mass for a product?


 * It will be awkward to handle well, but some discussion of the place of pornography on the internet would probably be important for completeness. TDang (talk) 18:13, 8 October 2010 (UTC)


 * labor market There are a number of aspects of this
 * Modern telecommunications allows remote working as never was possible previously.
 * Overlapping with open-source, there are a fair number of skilled knowledge workers who are willing to work for free. (This is with lots of caveats, just a note for the moment.)
 * I'm sure there's plenty of other labor issues
 * information spillover This partly ties into labor, since information spillover relates to labor moving between companies, laregly an issue in mitigating the competitive advantage of learning economies.
 * risk For a lot of information goods, there's a high risk. For drugs, the development process can be very expensive, when the drug might not be effective, approaved, or successful. For movies, music, and books often one can't be sure what will be a hit or a flop. How does that risk affect strategies?
 * contracting How are contracts structured for the production information goods? TDang (talk) 16:18, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

positive and negative feedback
In the long run, does spending time on "positive and negative feedback" explicitly benefit understanding? It's implicit in network externalities in any case. TDang (talk) 22:01, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Overall organization
This may mean a thematic change for the book to more "Economics of ..." than "Strategy for...", but I think the core economic models/ideas and the strategies based on those ideas should be made more distinct. For example, first there needs to be a model of network externalities, and after that model is mostly complete, then it can go into things like expectations management and penetration pricing. Being that this is economics, and the strategies are endogenous to the models, these divisions won't be completely clear-cut, but I think making those divisions as neatly as possible is a good goal. TDang (talk) 16:05, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Possible new overall structure: TDang (talk) 17:03, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * demand-side
 * Network externalities
 * two-sided markets
 * discrete goods
 * durable goods
 * lock-in
 * price discrimination
 * other pricing strategies
 * supply side-fixed costs
 * innovation
 * intellectual property
 * spillovers
 * open source
 * creative destruction
 * sunk costs (and risks of it being unknown how sunk a cost might be)
 * economies of scope (in fixed costs)
 * supply side-variable costs
 * low marginal cost of information goods
 * information technology and variable costs for non-information goods
 * distribution
 * business models for distribution/sales given internet: online uactions, etc.
 * competition with increased information
 * internet-specific businesses
 * search
 * online games
 * social networking
 * other topics
 * advertising

innovation
A worthwhile section for this book would be on innovation economics. There is theory and empirical research behind it. It could also help form an organizational structure for various intellectual property / piracy / information spillovers / open-source development and so forth. TDang (talk) 16:42, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Updated style guide
These are style guidelines we should follow uniformly throughout the book. If there is a style guideline you think would be helpful, please propose it here also. TDang (talk) 20:54, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Cleared to not conflict with updated style guide below TDang (discuss • contribs) 02:25, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Overall organization 2
Again, coming at overall organization. I think that starting with the cost/innovation side instead of the demand side might make sense, since it keeps feeling like the cost side jumps into the demand-side discussion.

Still want to orient this a bit more towards economics and a bit less toward strategy. Somewhere in-between, like industrial organization, so more "Economics of ..." than "Strategy for...".

Possible new overall structure: TDang (discuss • contribs) 22:15, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * supply side
 * innovation
 * intellectual property
 * simple monopoly models
 * rent, quasi-rent
 * piracy, DRM
 * fair use, idea ecosystem
 * non-IP motivations for innovation
 * spillovers
 * open source
 * creative destruction
 * sunk costs (and risks of it being unknown how sunk a cost might be)
 * learning economies
 * economies of scope
 * low marginal cost of information goods
 * information technology and variable costs for non-information goods
 * natural monopoly
 * Difficulty of applying typical strategies/analysis
 * demand-side
 * Network externalities
 * two-sided markets
 * advertising
 * discrete goods
 * durable goods
 * lock-in
 * price discrimination
 * other pricing strategies
 * distribution
 * business models for distribution/sales given internet: online uactions, etc.
 * competition with increased information
 * internet-specific businesses
 * search
 * online games
 * social networking
 * other topics

splitting book
This note suggests splitting the book. I lean against, but should revisit the idea after some re-organization. TDang (discuss • contribs) 22:19, 4 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I feel your pain, a monolithic text permits a greater vision and a hinger capacity to manage the structure. But consider the readers (ultimately the ones you are writing the book for) try to some inkling on where you are going with it and close the "finished" sections in their own pages. You can also create a monolithic version with those pages with transclusions, that has helped me in the past, however now there is a stricter limit on the number of possible transclusions. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 02:36, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * PS: See for example what I have done in C++ Programming/Chapters/C++. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 02:39, 5 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks, this is tricky. I'm hoping for a textbook for a one, or maybe two-semester course, so I see it as wholistic, and I'm hoping that the "splitting" sentiment is due to the current confusion in what's here rather than truly needed splitting. But... I'll see. TDang (discuss • contribs) 17:18, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

network society
It's probably a bit far-out for this text, but worth thinking about: Communication_Theory/Network_Society. TDang (discuss • contribs) 17:13, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

DVD region codes
Be sure to talk about DVD region code in regards to price discrimination. TDang (discuss • contribs) 08:57, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Another book
Lentis is a big Wikibook project which is likely to have some material which could be used here. TDang (discuss • contribs) 21:20, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Did some restructuring
Feel free to alter any of my changes. I also added the need to cover data mining, and explain how the Internet was turned into a market and by that fact regulations started to creep into it... --Panic (discuss • contribs) 22:56, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Has the class project terminated? Will anyone attempt to turn the separated pages into a consistent book project ? --Panic (discuss • contribs) 01:18, 19 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The class project went on hiatus, but has re-started. The goal is still a good textbook, but we may get there in baby steps. TDang (discuss • contribs) 23:37, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks see my next thread below... --Panic (discuss • contribs) 12:13, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Class project
Can anyone please stick a notice at the top of the page, regarding this class project especially the user that is heading the project and the expected duration and objectives. This would be extremely useful information to fellow wikibookians. Thanks. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 12:13, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Hopefully what I've added above the TOC is helpful. There's more material on possible organization, etc in various topic threads above. TDang (discuss • contribs) 19:35, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Related books
Rather than give each one its own topic, let's list other Wikibooks which seem related here: TDang (discuss • contribs) 19:25, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Communication_Theory/Network_Society (from above)
 * Lentis (from above)
 * Intellectual Property and the Internet (newly added, and recently created by importing stuff from Wikipedia, January 2012)

zimiaol
This website is very useful to learn the strategy for information markets, but the overall arrangement is little bit mess, branches are not clearly enough, I think rather than followed by a paragraph after the title, it would be better if they could add some spot points.

review thoughts April 2012
While I'm reviewing material, here are some all-purpose thoughts--not directed at any particular section.

Copying material from elsewhere
Don't copy material from elsewhere! (Except in very circumstances you communicate with me, which only one student has done so far.) It's academic dishonestly and/or copyright violation. If you have copied material from elsewhere and I haven't yet discovered it, make sure to: This is extremely important. If you goofed and copied material from somewhere else, there's time to correct that (although having done it will possibly impact your grade). If you goofed and copied material and it's still there next week, then it will be a major problem. If I discover something like that after grades are reported, I will be willing to file the change-of-grade paperwork to correct the grade.
 * 1) Go back and remove the material you copied
 * 2) Tell me about it.

Style guide
Here's mostly a repeat of earlier notes on style, but with some minor updating
 * 1) For most things, rather than Wikipedia, let's keep it within the book. This should be more book-like (something you'd imagine being printed on paper) and less hypertext. So, if you want to link to something extra (another section withing the book, or the glossary) do so, but skip the links to Wikipedia for most purposes.
 * 2) You Only use the second-person form of address you if it's strictly referring to the reader/student. In other cases, we should use one could rather than you could or specify an actor the business could rather than you could, since we don't want to assume the reader is in the place of a customer, business, analyst, or whatever.
 * 3) internet Don't capitalize "internet". This is an evolving standard, different sources use different standards. If you're quoting another source and they capitalize it, leave their capitalization in place. Otherwise, for us the "internet" is lowercase.
 * 4) Emphasizing keywords This standard might change as we see how it works out. To emphasize a key word or phrase (something which you might call a "vocabulary word" for the given section), we should bold that word/phrase the first time it appears only. Otherwise, the word/phrase should receive standard treatment like any other words, not being capitalized or otherwise emphasized. (Additionally, you might want to link keywords to the glossary.)
 * 5) Only chapter (also called "module" or "page") titles should have full capitalization. Sections within a module should have sentence capitalization.
 * 6) Formatting section headers: No bold or italic, use the Wikibooks code for sections.
 * 7) There should be an intro section--just don't give the first section a heading. The introduction should be an introduction-appeal to reader enough to make them want to read it and give a feeling for what's coming.

Objectivity
We're going for a textbook, which, for good or ill, means some amount of "dryness". Lively writing is good, but it should be somewhat objective and removed from what you're writing about.

One area where I've noticed this can be a challenge is in writing about a company or product (or class of product), that the writing will tend to become promotional, as if the writer is working for the company in question, trying to convince the reader that X is "the next big thing" or otherwise just fantastic. That's not appropriate for a textbook. The writing should be analytical.

just things I'm noticing
(If you're an ECON 452 student in Spring 2012, you really don't have to worry about what I'm writing here. This is for myself or any other future editors. Of course, if you're interested or want to be a future editor yourself, knock yourself out.)


 * This edit removed some text for not having an adequate reference. I bet a reference for that notion can be found, and this idea put back. TDang (discuss • contribs) 20:49, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
 * This edit same as above TDang (discuss • contribs) 21:37, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
 * This edit replaced a popular-media article with an academic article. I think that academic article is already referenced alsewhere and leaving the popular article in also would be good. TDang (discuss • contribs) 22:01, 4 May 2012 (UTC)