Talk:Strategy for Information Markets/Compatibility and Standards

where is it going?
As of this edit, you have some description of compatibility, lock-in, network externalities. It's not clear yet where you intend for this section to go. Chapters 8 and 9 of Information Rules are laregely about compatibility, so that could be a good place to get inspiration (to be used carefully so as not to plagiarize). Some thoughts:
 * Compatibility can sometimes be one-way, such as if a converter can modify a file from one piece of software for use in another, but not back again.
 * Backward compatibility is particularly interesting, both for network externalities and for technology.
 * Compatibility can limit the company on how much innovation they can do.
 * Compatibility can help a company by making the network larger, but can hurt the company by making it easier to switch to rivals.
 * If a company decides against compatibility, how can they keep rivals from instituting compatibility?
 * Are there any pricing issues related to compatibility? TDang (talk) 12:25, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Chapter Review
It may be beneficial that there be some type of simple example of information market compatibility and standards for the introduction to this chapter. I think that it would paint a good picture about what compatibility/standards means when referring to market strategy. The organization of the chapter seems clear in respect to the order of individual sections in the chapter, however, there are some sections that I feel haven’t been properly introduced. For example, the “Lock-in” section, right after the introduction seemed as if it came out of nowhere. This section should be introduced in a way that suggests how the issue of lock-in is related to compatibility and/or standards; it is not especially clear how it is associated to the chapter until the reader continues to read more in depth. Additionally, adding bullet points to some of the sections might make the read easier and make specific arguments more memorable. For example, the “Cooperation” section could potentially look something like this:

“… Many companies are generally looking to create a 2-sided platform, i.e. one that will benefit from more users and more developers. A common way of achieving this goal for companies is to:

•	Cooperate with other companies in order to create an open network standard on a single network of compatible users

•	Gain allies when introducing and maintaining a formal standard

•	Find other firms who will support your standard in order to gain positive feedback.

Where positive feedback is the notion that, "As the installed base of users grows, more and more users find adoption worthwhile." [1] If your firm is smaller with very little product recognition or name recognition, it may be beneficial to ally with a company with a large consumer base and network externalities…” --RConway (discuss • contribs) 20:04, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the example of switching from VHS to DVD's in the introductory paragraph for the section on lock-ins is a great example to use because the switch has already been made and it was worthwhile to make the switch. When describing an individual lock-in, the chapter states, "Individual lock-in is the idea that it is too costly to switch to a new technology so it is not worthwhile to switch" but we already know that the switch to DVD's was not only a very successful switch but also a very profitable switch.

I also think that the section "New Companies" should be changed around. The wording for penetration pricing is very confusing and should be edited for easier reading. As of now it reads "Simply, penetration pricing is a marketing strategy for firms in the market without dominant control by lowering the pricing scale oppose to price inflation." but this should be re-worded to help the reader understand what is trying to be said. Also, the third strategy "network externalities" is described as being a combination of the two previous bullet points, but it is more than that and should describe what network externalities are and possibly give an example. Rycomp (discuss • contribs) 03:56, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

ECON 452 first midterm class reviews
Please put your reviews for the class assignment here. you may make your review into a sub-section of this section, or just a paragraph. Make sure the reader can identify your review, and make sure to include your signature. TDang (talk) 00:33, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

1st midterm review RickRoll (talk) 18:12, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Seems like a very good start. The section on bypassing collective lock-in was a little confusing, the part on how easy it is to change from product to product makes it seem that collective lock-in isn't a problem. Similarly, some more information, further explaining individual lock-in would be nice--I understand the what is meant, but I already have  a basic knowledge of lock-in.

There were also some grammatical errors that need to be fixed, i.e. "creating a cleavage between themselves and other firms," or "coordinating their investing in a certain inferior technology."

Overall, it flows well and is not too difficult to read. I am able to understand the vast majority of it, even though for the most part you are explaining somewhat complex stuff--good job in using simple language. Also, you may need additional references, but it was at least encouraging that you linked to a source.

Peer Review
I know it seems silly but you might want to cite the American Heritage Dictionary quotation from the beginning. In fact more citations throughout certainly wouldn't hurt. And because this is a book for general purposes and not just something that should only be understandable to someone who has taken ECON 452, you might want to make the intro paragraph a little more explicative and take fewer things for granted. Something as simple as a seven-word definition of the word 'network' could help someone who doesn't possess a great level of familiarity of the subject. Thank you for explaining why we care about compatibility and standards, that is something crucial to the whole idea of your section. Think about beefing up the section about lock-in. Lock-in is a pretty interesting phenomena and certainly deserves a bit of discussion. I'm sorry if I mistook the meaning of the Formal Standards part but I personally would benefit from a little clarity in that section, maybe working with some sort of organization scheme that separates what standards are and how they come about and who has them and what they do. Those things might even find a place in a smaller section at the beginning of the Formal Standards portion to clear up some of the basics. My apologies if I misread that portion but it just seems a little foggy. I especially like the 'Who Benefits from Standards?' section and wouldn't mind seeing some more in that area. The economic benefits of standards can be extraordinary and a lot of real-world examples could serve to embolden the message of this section.

Overall I feel that the goal is quite clear even if the delivery needs a little refinement. Maybe try writing down what question you want a section to answer and then reading that portion aloud and trying to see if that particular passage helped answer that question, just to try to make sure each passage justifies both itself and the larger topic. The purpose is articulated distinctly and the body of the writing stays true to the initial goal. Each part could be expounded upon significantly, which is great. You have places to go. Nice work, folks.

• BJ Crowning (contribs) 21:33, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Midterm Review
The goal of this piece was very clear and had very good information to help lead the reader to the main point of your subject. Understanding the material was quite simple for me and all of your information flowed very well which helped in understanding your subject. Adding some more references to your project would be helpful For certain things such as the definitions like Lock-in, Collective Lock-in, and Individual Lock-in it would be useful to have a reference and page number in-case somebody wants to look up these words or learn more about them.

Also I agree with my peers above in trying to make your information easy for everyone to read and not just people who are in or have taken ECON 452, because you never know who is going to be reading and reviewing your information that you have posted online. Like for standards explaining how they change competition and focus would be useful to someone who doesn't know how standards affect these certain areas, a little more detail in this section can help someone understand the concept better. Also how can a standard without as much detail allow for more competition based on features? Explain more about that because I know I would like to know how that is possible.

Salacko (talk) 02:42, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Peer review
Overall, a good start and outline of the topics covered within Compatibility and Standards. The only things I saw that might be necessary would be expanding on what expectations management is and the different ways it can be done/managed by a firm. Other than that if you'd like to provide an example of an incument and/or complementary firms that have lost/gained due to standards that would be nice (It's up to you, just a suggestion). Other than that, I just noticed a few grammatical/spelling errors, some of which I took the time to edit. Good job.

-Vernon Crabtree (talk) 04:51, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Midterm Review
Strong starting foundation with a strong opening paragraph. The small section on describing lock-in could maybe be developed a little bit further, I know you split it up to describe both sections but a more developed introduction to it could help. Also, it seems as the By-passing lock-in tries to state that lock-in is not much of a problem, and can easily be solved. Agreeing with my peers on the fact that it should be written as if it is a 'For Dummies' article, meaning any person who reads it should know exactly what you are trying to say; not just someone who is studying or taking classes on the material. I like the 'Standards' section as it seems clear and a strong start to a developing article which will continue to strengthen and become more informative as the more edits are done. Overall I think this is a great start to your chapter and is forward looking. These articles seem like they can be developed properly and will be able to give full information by the time the chapter is completed. Nice work. ArtVandelay (talk) 18:18, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

TDang review
I'm reviewing this version:
 * "Thus if people coordinate on an inferior product, it is fairly easy to change to the more efficient product because they would be compatible." The overall idea is right, but the paragraph needs some re-phrasing. People coordinated not really on a product, but on a network (which might be only one product, but could be more).
 * Collective & Individual lock-in: These are very general. Giving concrete examples (probably brief) with both the lock-in (or potential for lock-in) and the successful bypassing of the lock-in would help. (Lock-in is part of another section, so it's good to mention it where appropriate, but not go into too much depth describing/defining it.)
 * I moved the "Cooperation" section to be part of "Formal standards", since it's primarily about the formal standard-setting process. It could probably use some re-phrasing to make it fit well.
 * "... companies will compete within the network" -> should be within the market

General comments: I'm trying to figure out the best way for you to go. You've got a good basis there already. It certainly needs some careful copy-editing to make the writing clearer. The bits about two-sided platforms are usually correct, but are also thrown into the middle of a thought and so I think make it more confusing rather than helpful. Small parts should be expanded. You should cover complements/components in a bit more depth. Besides standards, you should consider compatibility. Often one company (usually, though not always a market leader) will try to discourage compatibility. Compatibility may be one-way (backward-compatibility maybe allowing reading of files made by an older version, but not writing of files that the older version can read, a competitor allowing for one-way conversion, etc.). An article to read (old, but good) is here.

I think the strongest route you could take--besides simply polishing--would be to work on examples. You can take some of the examples from Information Rules, credited and carefully written to avoid plagiarism. You should also look at other examples, standards which failed to take off, standards which forked, or were too tightly controlled. Standards which are sponsored by a body like W3C or ANSI. TDang (talk) 18:09, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

ECON 452 second midterm class reviews
Please put your reviews for the class assignment here. You may make your review into a sub-section of this section, or just a paragraph. Make sure the reader can identify your review, and make sure to include your signature TDang (talk) 17:27, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

2nd Midterm Review
From what I read you guys have a great book going here. You've taken the first round of critiques into consideration and have gone forth with the ones that make sense. You've tied a lot of things we've learned in class and in readings into this book which makes it very easy for me as a classmate to understand. While that is a pro it can also be a con because this sounds a lot like a regergutation of class. There isn't a whole lot of new material in this book that we haven't seen before. I would suggest getting more references because from the looks of it there is only one. That is just my two cents, like I said the book has a great start maybe just try and take things a step further. MSanchez (talk)

Your book has a lot of great information and is very easy to follow. You have linked your work together very well and it makes it all very easy to understand. Using most of the things we have learned in class and that are related to your topic has been a great start for your group, however, I would only suggest showing how each section of your book may relate to other areas, or specific industries. Aside from that I think you have done a great job. ebag (talk)

Looks good to me, very easy to read because of how organized it is. Under the "New Companies" section maybe think about expanding on the three strategies you have. Maybe try to find a companies that have used those strategies and explain it, that way you have a real life example for people to relate to. I does sound a lot like what we have heard in class but if someone who is reading this hasn't taken a class like Econ 452 this is a very good book for them. Good work. --Mschwart (talk) 18:31, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I really enjoyed reading this entire book that you guys have wrote. It is laid out and described in a very detailed manner that is easy for the reader to understand. Although the entire book is very descriptive it would be nice if you can add a few more examples to back up your statements. Overall you all did a great job writing not only about the different standards and how it influences competition but also you were specific with the many different lock-ins. --Pheagles (talk) 22:24, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

2nd Midterm Review
First off I would like to mention that your introduction paragraph is great. It gives the reader a perfect amount of information preparing us for the rest of the book. Like mentioned above you really took everyones advice and followed through with a very in depth book that seems to link every section in with not only our book but the discussions in class. In the collective lock-in paragraph and the section on New companies, I feel there might be some phrasing errors but nothing too serious. Not only did you incorporate Information Rules but also included a few sections on subjects we have not covered in class which of course is a plus (Forking). I would also try to give more real life examples of how compatibility and standards affect or relate to companies today

Basically I found your wikibook to be very informative, well put together, and hard to find any concrete issues or items missing. To me it seems like with a few minor tweaks or additions your project is almost be done. Good work all around. ARoszkow (talk) 18:21, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

TDang review

 * VHS-to-DVD, and cassette-to-CD switches have both an individual lock-in component and a collective lock-in component. It's not technically wrong to use them here, but it could be confusing. Make clear the individual part of the lock-in versus the collective part.
 * "competing within the network as opposed to competing for the network" still need to fix that
 * Lock-in section: There seems to be confusion about who is locked in, who has switching costs. Generally, we're focused on consumers being locked-in, not firms. (Of course, for many things, the consumers ARE firms, but...) It's certainly possible for businesses to get locked-in as well, where it can become difficult for them to switch to selling a different kind of product, but IF that's what you're talking about it should be separated.
 * "Microsoft introduced Word with "specialized help for Wordperfect users"" Is this bypassing collective or individual lock-in? (Bypassing individual lock-in could help in bypassing collective lock-in, but it should be clear). For instance, adding something to a program which easily converts files from another program helps people to share files between networks, and so helps to bypass collective lock-in (and maybe individual lock-in if the user has old files they need to convert).
 * "Also, with the PlayStation 3 gaming console being Blu-Ray compatible..." This is interesting in general, but it doesn't fit into bypassing lock-in, and I'm not sure if it fits elsewhere in your page.
 * It's good to have a section on forking, but there's too much being crammed into one paragraph.It's not immediately clear that a discussion of forking needs to include discussion of whether markets are "tippy" or not. Forking can be bad because it can fracture the network, and that essentially reverses all the things that might be good about having standards. (Forking, or at least the possibility of forking, can also be good because it can help prevent lock-in into a bad standard.)
 * "The premier timing for penetration pricing is done in a market with high elasticity" I gather that the term "penetration pricing" is sometimes used in a way where that would be correct, but that's not how we're using it. For our purposes, penetration pricing is about overcoming critical mass, and on that side of the demand curve we're not even thinking about elasticity.

General comments: You have good stuff here. You should address specific comments, and try to do overall improvements. Probably your best bet for overall improvements is to go to more sources. Find good articles on compatibility and standards (such as this one I linked above) in economics or business journals, and look at them. Find examples of bad standards, attempts to form standards which failed, standards which were broken by forking, etc. See if you can identify a market which suffered badly from the lack of a standard. See if you can find a business which benefits from the lack of a standard. Think about Embrace extend and extinguish as a Microsoft thing, and more generally. TDang (talk) 18:38, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

The page is relevant to how I see the textbook.
The page is relevant to how I see the textbook. I think the page should not be removed to a different kind of book of set aside as a " case study". The page has the different part and very clear to read and look for the specific material so that the page is organized in a coherent way.

Audit of article
Made a few edits:
 * I deleted the large link that was dedicated to forking, and linked to it in a section that mentions it here. If there is merit in the article for a section that links to forking, I won't take offense if my edit is undone. It just seemed strange that there was no context or description that accommodated it, so I moved it to where I found one.
 * I went through and edited the formatting where it looked like it needed help in each section. I tried ensuring that the sections looked acceptable by themselves, but for a future editor, perhaps consider making the formatting consistent throughout the entire page.
 * misc copy-editing throughout article.
 * Cosmopolite (discuss • contribs) 11:08, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

removed some material
I pulled out some material which was copied directly from elsewhere. TDang (discuss • contribs) 21:45, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

And also this TDang (discuss • contribs) 21:52, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

TDang review April 2012
I'm reviewing this version. I'll likely be more critical than complimentary, because (a) that's the way I am and (b) that's what will help improve things. Please don't take the criticism-over-compliments to mean I have a wholly negative view.

Make sure to check the all-purpose review thoughts as well.

TDang (discuss • contribs) 05:53, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
 * As noted above, I pulled out a fair amount of material which didn't belong.
 * "by forcing compatibility among the network"--"Forcing" is probably too strong a word. A standard might be compulsory or might be optional, but if a standard isn't met, the product which doesn't meet the standard is not a proper part of the network (although many companies will try to sneakily violate this)
 * "The concept of an information market arises from the development of the internet and the World Wide Web..."--While many companies do index, gather statistics, etc, the bulk of the internet/web is about distributing simple non-statistical information. Information markets are markets for information goods. Many of those (movies, for instance) are not about "information" in any scientific sense. I think this paragraph should be set aside somewhere. It's an interesting start to something, but I don't think it belongs here.
 * Lock-in--It looks like there's good stuff here, but it's somewhat redundant with Strategy_for_Information_Markets/Dynamic_Competition. I suggest moving this lock-in material over there and trying to merge it into a coherent whole.
 * "Proprietary Standards are considered to be the standards an entire market sector must meet based on what the company ..."--Proprietary standards are standards which are controlled by a particular company, and so make the standard effectively a closed network. A standard may be proprietary, for instance, when it is based on specific patents, and so the owner of those patents may deny others the right to use the standard.
 * "In firms with strong unionization, a voluntary standard may be useful, for management, in combating the bargaining strength of the union."--Huh? This really needs a clear reference, and possibly more explanation.
 * New companies--Most of this is handled elsewhere in the book, this should probably come out.
 * Applications--This section, like the Information Market section, seems to be talking about something else, and should be pulled aside. (Maybe move them here to the talk page until it can be figured out where they belong?)
 * Development of Information Market--This also should be pulled aside.
 * Who Benefits from Standards?--I believe this section is pretty closely inspired by Information Rules and so that should be referenced here.
 * Who is Harmed by Standards?--This is interesting, because it appears to be referenced, yet also seems to disagree with "who benefits from standards?"
 * Possibly both of these need to be put together, and if there is a disagreement between the two describe who argues each of the two sides of the disagreement. For instance, above it says innovators love standards, while below it says start-up companies don't like standards...
 * Food standards aren't really relevant for this material--those are standards for quality, not standards for interoperability. It's a different thing. Possibly pointing that out on the page would be worthwhile. Anyway, FDA standards should come out.
 * ARM Holdings' Common Security Standard (2012)--This is interesting, but stands alone without context in the article. If it could be made to illustrate one of the mare general points in the article, that could be good. (Alternatively, it could be held aside and elaborated just a bit as an interesting tidbit.)
 * Cloud Computing and Compatibility--This needs more elaboration. What standards does cloud computing use? Can I make my different cloud services interoperate with one another?
 * References
 * Try to give separate references to the different relevant pages in Information Rules.
 * It looks like there's lots of good references at the bottom of the page, but it's tricky to track some of the ideas in the main text. Try to make the references "in-line" references.

references for what
I slightly re-formatted some messy references. The trouble with them now is that, since they weren't inline references, it's not clear exactly what they refer to (if they even refer to anything still on the page), so they'll need some reviewing. (They look like mostly good refs, so it's probable they'll be useful.) TDang (discuss • contribs) 23:58, 17 May 2012 (UTC)