Talk:Strategy for Information Markets/Globalization

What's the focus
The section About Regionalization describes regionalization in the broadest terms, that would be appropriate for an economic geography course, perhaps. But it's really not clear what it has to do with this course. The section on price discrimination begins to get at how it relates. Regionalization could also include "localization" which is customizing a product differently for different geographical markets (at its most basic, this would include translation to the local language). For instance, I've heard (you'd have to do more solid research) that Nintendo deliberately makes its products light on language so that it's easy to sell in different markets without translation.

Here are a few links which might be relevant:
 * Regional lockout
 * DVD region code
 * Game localization TDang (talk) 20:45, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

About regionalization section
I'm looking at this version right now:.

In an abstract sense, spending a little time describing regionalization and setting up how it's going to relate later could be fine. It would be like a mini-introduction. So that could be OK.

However, in the current version, the description of regionalization reads as pretty far afield from what's relevant to the class. That's mostly a description of political regionalization (of which I know little). Regionalization from a business perspective does overlap with that to some degree--large international businesses will create divisions focused on particular regions, in a kinda-political move that's about administration. However, even this business-oriented regionalization doesn't clearly relate to information or network goods any more than other goods (cars, refrigerators...). By "doesn't clearly", I intend to leave you some wiggle room, because perhaps you'll find something I don't see.

Based on what I see, regionalization as it refers to this course can include things like:
 * defining regions: For anything else to be done in a regional way, the regions have to be identified, and different factors (political, legal, language, local wealth and income, local customs on piracy, local taste, local competition, etc.) could matter depending on the precise goal of regionalization.
 * price discrimination by region: This requires all the standard stuff for price discrimination, which I won't go into here, but will come up in class and you're likely familiar with from other courses. Issues of avoiding arbitrage when price discriminating are closely related to issues of avoiding piracy.
 * localization: There can be benefit in customizing your product for the local market. For information goods, the clearest example of this is providing it in different languages. There are plenty of interesting issues around that: what's the cost of localization? is there a way to design the product to make localization easier/cheaper? are the various localized products part of the same network for the externalities?

So, the current "About Regionalization" section seems to me to be introducing the wrong topic. Such a section could be worthwhile if re-oriented, however. My suggestion would be to think about how you work.
 * For some, writing an introduction first helps set the agenda and makes writing the rest easier. If this is you, then try to rewrite the "About Regionalization" section.
 * For others, writing the main body clarifies itself, and then the introduction can be written as a kinda summary of the body. If this is you, either cut out "About Regionalization" oor just leave it alone for now, work on the main body material, and then go back to doing an introduction.

As an aside, I may have mentioned to one group member in person, or I might not have... Another interesting bit of regionalization, almost purely for the purposes of price discrimination, is pharmaceuticals. We often don't think of drugs as information goods, but for many of them, the overwhelming bulk of the cost is due to the intellectual property, not the synthesizing or distributing. Looking at how drug companies price discriminate in different markets, particularly due to local politics, could be very interesting. (This would only be one example, if you left it out or gave it small attention, that could be fine.) TDang (talk) 16:21, 6 October 2010 (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)

My Review
Well written in most parts. Needs references in the majority of the text. The section on Price Discrimination is well written, but the basics of price discrimination are a fairly simple economic principle and I'm not sure they belong in a text for this class. Maybe focus more on how Price Discrimination relates to the ideas of this class and globalization. Haha, did you mean to call Alumni "Chumps"? are any Alumni going to read this?

I like the section on Censorship in Asia, maybe give some examples of foreign companies that have successfully traversed the tight Chinese restrictions.

Will you use any other countries as examples in your section? Other than Asian countries? --Gormanp (talk) 16:54, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Review

Regionalization has a lot of information about the history of it as a psychological perspective, maybe try incorporating more in depth information on regionalization with information goods, providing examples might help of companies. Maybe how some companies succeeded/failed in implementing regionalization to their product sales, etc.

Should incorporate price discrimination with regionalization and localization, maybe find examples of how price discrimination is affected by regionalization/localization, rather than just how price discrimination is defined and used in the same region.

Localization part seemed well incorporated with the topic of information markets strategy of localizing.

Part of censorship in China does a good job telling readers how politics have a huge influence over information goods and free trade, except maybe try changing the perspective from government’s control to the perspective of the actual companies, and how information good’s companies have competed with these barriers and what strategies they have used to get around these barriers. Specific examples might help; using specific information goods companies that have benefitted from China’s strict laws/been harmed. I think this part is supposed to be moved to the beginning of the topic.

Overall good work, maybe work on incorporating the parts within this topic so that it is easy to understand how each part relates.

Raptime21 (talk) 04:53, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

My Review

I think this group has done a good job so far, the page looked organized and each section clearly approached its informative goal. The price discrimination section covered a great deal of the 3 different types of PD, and gave some interesting examples for each type. Also the censorship section contains detailed emphasizes on the Asian markets, especially China. Although, two different references were used, I think more references are needed. Wmosman (talk) 17:16, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

My Review

Agreeing with the previous reviews, i think the page is well written, minus the need for additional references, and occasional spelling errors; "in reality sells departments will further..", and "PD firms divid the market..." are a couple examples, but overall i think the group is on the right track.

Also, I find the analogy about "weathering the storm" and your boat being "sunk" pretty funny, but I do not think it necessarily belongs under the single section title on price discrimination. Perhaps you could divide this long section up into different sections, in the first part you could include general background information, then create a new section about types of PD and finally a section about strategy in markets that rely heavily on PD. These are just suggestions, but it seems to me this section lacks cohesiveness.

This may be due to my lacking of knowledge on the topic, but i think a better explanation of "internationalization" might be a good point to touch on. The first point i see this topic mentioned is under the localization, and it is listed as preceding localization in the sequence of phases of globalization. I could be useful to map out the different phases and create some kind of "time-line Esq" diagram or picture that explains (in a brief sentence) the different phases and what happens in each phase.

The final section about censorship is very interesting. I think it is a good section to include in the page, but it should first be more developed and lead into the topic. It currently seems out of place with relation to the rest of the information.

I did not mean to touch only on the negatives; I think the page is developing extremely well. As a whole this group seems to be on track and is doing a great job, keep up the good work! "Lark Mohr (talk) 17:48, 19 October 2010 (UTC)"

My Review

This topic was interesting to read about. I thought your organization describing the steps and processes of your information was great. The first section about the placement of milk and cookies reminded me of Economies of Scope because one company might make both milk and cookies because not only are they good together, but it might be cheaper to produce. Maybe incorporate Economies of Scope in your paper and see how that relates to luring customers into buying your product. Also, if you would like, compare and contrast the companies; one with economies of scope, and one thats not contain economies of scope and see the similarities and differences on their overall profit as well as customer loyalty.

TDang review
I'm reviewing this version:


 * The attempt to integrate a directly-relevant discussion of localization with the more general intro on regionalization has turned out (so far) to be awkward. It might be best to drop the regionalization intro entirely?
 * price discrimination "...while maximizing the firm's market share"; maximizing market share is only occasionally a concern of price discrimination. Usually it's just about maximizing profit, which could relate to maximizing market share, but maybe not.
 * Auctions can be used as a way of price-discriminating, but it's trickier than your example. First, notice the expression, "homogeneous product of antique furniture". Generally, one of the reasons antique furniture is sold at auction is that it is NOT usually homogeneous. As a practical matter, if an auction is used to sell a single unit of something when there are many interested potential buyers, it's hard to say that's price-discriminating, because the failed bidders don't get to buy the good. Sometimes there are auctions which sell many of the same good, but usually in those cases all the buyers pay the same price. In any case, if an auction is used for price discrimination, it still isn't the case that "each consumer pays the highest price they are willing to pay for each unit sold." Auction theory has buyers generally paying less than their true willingness-to-pay.
 * I appreciate the effort to set a fun tone with the "weather"/"trade winds"/"Navigation" theme, but it's so inconsistent with the tone of the rest of the book that I think it has to be removed.

General comments: It's still hard to see where this is going. regionalization. It's over-developed because it goes into more detail--both with theory and examples--on price discrimination generally than is appropriate. For instance, personalized pricing is irrelevant to regionalization.
 * The section on localization is a rough introduction to the topic, but so far it's no more than that. Some questions about localization: How much does it cost? When is it worth the cost? Is it better to design from the outset so less localization is needed? How does localization fit with price discrimination? Can localization damage the original product or the company's reputation? ("All your base are belong to us!")
 * The section on price discrimination is both under-and-over-developed. It's under-developed because it doesn't really begin to approach the issues of price discrimination and

Here's a question to figure out as a group: As of the version I reviewed, there wasn't much on localization/regionalization. There's more material on price discrimination generally. I'm not sure what this means. If you want to (quickly!) shift gears and do a section on price discrimination generally, that's a possibility. If you want to stick with the globalization/regionalization/localization, which includes regional price-discrimination as a part of it, that would still be a great section for this book. I'd encourage you to stick with it, but only if you think you can do so. TDang (talk) 17:16, 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) 17:30, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Try and find a reference for the Academic price discrimination part. It is pretty good overall. I found that you guys need to add more references when you define things like 1st degree price discrimination, international discrimination, etc. I was also not entirely clear as to how the censorship in Asia fits into all of this, and did not find references in that section. Try and transition better from section to section. Other than those few things, it all looked good. Caylor Tornelius (talk)

This page has a huge amount of text but seemingly no references to support what you have written. The largest section on this page "Censorship in Asia" has no references and an odd fit into the structure of the rest of your material, more than a minor oversight when you consider the gravity and the abundance of information on that topic. I also noticed that there was a lack of proof reading especially considering grammar errors. There is also some overlap in your sections concerning price discrimination. It has its own section but is talked about in detail in the regionalization. Orngjuce5 (talk) 16:17, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Review
The first thing that strikes me is that while your topic is globalization, there are no sections on globalization. Our class is constructing an economic strategy book to potentially help others who are interested in learning more about the disparate areas of information economics and, although this may just be an editorial slant, I think it would be appropriate to have an introductory section on globalization. For someone with no economic or business background, globalization could mean putting a globe in every classroom. Someone with an uneducated, outside perspective would be served well by being eased into the section. Citations are also crucially important. For the entire work you only have five citations, where at least five times that number would be appropriate. Of course not just one of you is writing all the information but for continuity's sake it might be nice to assign one person to do overall copy editing to keep sections uniform and stylistically indistinct from one another. Also there is some really interesting organizational strangeness going on with the end of the price discrimination section, at least as of right now when I am viewing it. I would recommended that a large portion of the text either be omitted or supported with citations. For example:

In the first paragraph, "Our country has been forming specific regions nationwide for hundreds of years" is a bold and inherently biased sentence with no reference to support it. What country? Who is our? 'We' and 'our' don't really have place in an academic book.

The section on price discrimination is largely without citation as well, and it is my impression that for definitions of different kinds of price discrimination it wouldn't be all that tough to find some sources. It seems that there is a lack of bigger picture and unifying thought throughout this book section. Each of the sections is effectively independent from one another, but that is something that could likely be solved by an introductory paragraph on globalization. What is it, what does it does, what are it's effects, what comprises it, why is it important, what are the draw backs, what are the implementations of it. Then the regionalization and localization sections make more sense and work with the grand scheme of the section. Also those two sections should probably be next to each other. For fluency and literary effect you could have globalization followed by regionalization followed by localization followed by specific economic elements of the topic, which would be a biggest > next biggest > smaller > smallest kind of composition. Nice work though, you have a lot to work with and can certainly move forward with this section in some great ways. BJ Crowning (talk) 18:21, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

My Review

This chapter is titled "Markets/Globalization"; the first paragraph is basically a bundle of definitions for regionalization. It would be best to start off the chapter with a paragraph that defines globalization, since most people who would use this site as a source are going to narrow down there search based on the title. So it is imperative that key terms are defined in the very beginning so it can keep the reader or researcher tuned in on your chapter, instead of being frustrated by not finding their definition and moving along. Even with the first paragraph about regionalization there are different factors of mentioned such as "economic, social, and physical infrastructures", but there are not any examples of these factors what so ever. It is highly likely that majority of the readers or researchers probably do not have a strong background in economics and may be confused with some of these simple terms. In order lock-in readers for your chapter, you must define every term that may confuse a child because this opens up the opportunity for that reader to go else where to find these definitions, which may ultimately lead to reader to abandon this website for the rest of their research and beyound. Other wise a few tweaks here and there this paragraph is well written and should follow an opening paragraph that clearly defines globalization. The opening paragraph is always the easiest to critique because it is essentially the first impression of the whole chapter for the reader. The price discrimination does a good job of definitions, but there could be better real life examples such as how real companies function and use these different forms of price discrimination. The paragraph on localization is well written and gives clear and precise examples, but there is a mention of internationalization without really a strong definition.

TDang review

 * The first paragraph on regionalization really seems to be talking about something else. It muddles, instead of clarifying.
 * There are some spelling troubles which appear to slip past a spell-checker by being a real word, but the wrong one ("prefaces", "preventing feature entries", "arbitration?", others?)
 * Price Discrimination section: This section should be significantly expanded. The general material about price discrimination is OK, but should only be here to provide context to the material on international price discrimination, which is only two paragraphs currently. Those two paragraphs need to be expanded very carefully, with references. Specifics are important.
 * The localization section is a good overview, and uses its references well. It could stand as it is, with a bit of writing cleanup or be expanded.
 * It would be good to have examples of successful and failed localization attempts.
 * Likewise (and perhaps combined with the above) several cross-nation examples. China-to-Argentina, Japan-to-Germany, or such? We're in the U.S., and this is in English, so things where the U.S. is on one side will be most immediately compelling, but others are of interest as well.
 * It would be good to identify products which are created with the intent that they will be marketed internationally and significantly localized (say, the Windows OS) versus products where localization may occur as an afterthought (say, a popular music CD).
 * Is it better to design from the outset so less localization is needed?
 * Are there markets where the potential revenue makes localization not worthwhile? (Marketing computer games in poor countries?) Do businesses do it anyway for the sake of global recognition?

General Comments: It just needs more! I know that your group hasn't been spending time on the "Censorship in Asia" part. That's OK. However, if you're finding yourself running out of steam on the regionalization/localization material, addressing the censorship stuff could be a way of continuing to improve the section. TDang (talk) 18:33, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Mcbell review
I think in the beginning, you should state exactly what globalization is and clarify its definition with giving a clear example behind it so the reading gets a good understand right from the start, instead of the just rambling on about globalization.

Over all the Price discrimination section is well written. I think that readers would understand it more (especially if they don't have an economic background) would be to use real life examples on price discrimination and maybe link examples that have happened in the past to the reader can review it. This section can be expanded as well. There is a lot of information about price discrimination that is to be known, but it seems like we are only covering the basics. Could be some more in text citations

Also on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree, I think we could put a name next to the degrees of what they are and what they describe because just knowing the degrees is hard to remember which one is which

Topic on localization is great. It provides insight on what localization is, talks about the costs associated with it, and give great and clear examples. The price discrimination section should be structured like the localization part, breaking it down piece by piece instead of just being all over the place.

Over all there are good arguments in this section, it just needs to be expanded. If more real world examples are given, it help the reader relate it to the real world, making it easier to understand and remember.
 * All of that sounds good. TDang (discuss • contribs) 23:20, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Steskew review
There is a lot of information about international price discrimination and textbooks but not much about pharmaceuticals. I think that this section could be expanded upon and it would be a good point to talk a bit more about intellectual property law in the United States opposed to other countries. Also what ramifications do these high prices have on the people who cannot afford the drugs? Also I thought the section on localization covered what it needed to but there are a couple grammatical errors and needs to be re-read and corrected. Besides these points I think that the article was well written and very informational, however, it is not imperative but I believe some charts and graphics would be useful in explaining some of the points. I think a graphical depiction of some of the facts will help a lot. --Steskew (discuss • contribs) 03:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree on both pharmaceuticals and differences in IP law. I can't be sure about the graphs until I see them, but in general I think graphs can be a hugely valuable addition to a text. TDang (discuss • contribs) 23:22, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

price discrimination
Regarding these edits, I have a few thoughts.
 * 1) International price discrimination is important, but price discrimination is background for this page, not something which should be developed in depth on this page. Maybe move it to another page entirely? In any case, if there's going to be elaboration on it here, the elaboration should be globalization-specific.
 * 2) Mentioning something being illegal definitely needs a reference--to a legal document if need be, but to something in a popular business publication or economics paper would be better.
 * 3) If talking about legality in the context of globalization, probably differences in laws should be considered. What is legal in the U.S. might not be legal in the EU or China, or there might be WTO rules impacting price discrimination between countries. Or maybe not... TDang (discuss • contribs) 16:09, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

possibly relevant legal case
In this case, someone is being sued for copyright violation for purchasing textbooks abroad and selling them in the U.S. This case is very relevant to international price-discrimination with regard to copyrighted works. TDang (discuss • contribs) 20:54, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

An audit of the page
Made a few edits:
 * 1st paragraph - Oxford commas, minor clean-ups.
 * 2nd para - synthesized two clauses for fluidity,
 * 3rd para - misc clean ups, fixed awkward clauses,
 * Made the next section bulleted rather than "-"'d Fixed some other minor things. Tried to make it more NPOV as well.
 * Price discrimination section - minor edits, improved fluidity, NPOV, grammar, spelling, added some content from lectures,
 * The Pharmaceuticals section was rather lacking in the NPOV department...
 * Textbooks section - minor edits
 * "PD?" perhaps consider spelling this out, or abbreviating it consistently [[image:smile.png]]
 * Next sections: misc editing, fluidity,
 * The China paragraph needs some more NPOV work. I tried doing what I could here.
 * Cosmopolite (discuss • contribs) 06:16, 24 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) 18:17, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Overall--Globalization is many things, which are relevant economically and can fill many books. For this book, it should be limited to things which are obviously relevant to information/network economics.
 * Intro paragraph--It's a little hard to read, I think because it tries to give formal definitions of terms which tend to be used more casually. I would suggest going with the casual idea and not the formal definition here, which might mean getting rid of the "regionalization" entirely. That is, UNLESS the formal definitions are important for later analysis, in which case they should be more carefully defined.
 * Price discrimination--I've moved most of this to price discrimination to its own page where it needs cleanup, although it is still mentioned here.
 * For the purposes of the Globalization page, we should assume that the reader already understands price discrimination and doesn't need general explanations, but might need explanation for how it is tied in with globalization.
 * "One of the main components that arise from globalization and regionalization is price discrimination"--I think this is overstating the case.
 * "By use of price discrimination, companies can increase their profit potential while maximizing their share in their market"--As economists, we don't usually think about market share as a goal unto itself. If a large market share is a goal, it needs to be explained how that serves profit maximization.
 * Positive/Negative aspects of globalization--This might be wading into a political economy debate we'd rather avoid in the book unless we can really usefully contribute to it. For our purposes, these positive and negative aspects are too general, not specific to information/network economics.
 * Localization
 * Regional lockout--This should more properly be part of price discrimination, and would fit well on this page as globalization-specific price discrimination, or could be moved to the price discrimination page.
 * Economies of scope--Mentioning economies of scope here would be worthwhile. When is it cheaper to produce a localized version of a global product versus when is it cheaper to produce separate software for different markets? (Some of this is implicit in what's already there, but if it's not clear would need good references.)
 * Network externalities--It would be good (if references can be found) to address network externalities for localized products. Is a Japanese/Hebrew/French version of a word processor part of the same network as an English version? If so, localization can have advantages (both to the software company and the consumers) beyond developing separate versions for different markets.
 * Video Game Localization--this section needs references.
 * Fast Food Industry--This is probably too distant from where we're aiming with this book, and should be removed.
 * Asian Censorship--This is an important topic in terms of politics and human rights, but we want to keep our focus as much on the economics as possible. I'm not sure how to do that, so unless someone else figures it out, my suggestions are to:
 * Keep this section, but shrink it a bit. It might be good to focus on the business decisions companies must make of whether to work with the censorship or stay out of the Chinese market.
 * Get better references for what is there.
 * Strategies for Successful Business Involvement in Asia--Mostly this should be removed, except material which is merged into the "Asian Censorship" section.
 * References--The references being used at the bottom of the page look good. Consider (and some mention above) what other sections want references. About.com is not a good reference.
 * Other suggestions Here's some thoughts on other material (if included, needs good references):
 * There's already been stuff written on price discrimination in pharmaceuticals. Since that is globalization-specific, perhaps it should come back here.
 * Consider what forms of labor can be performed electronically/remotely. This includes things like call centers in countries where the customers don't live, lots of software development, and what else? What are some implications of this?
 * What fraction of the world population has (a) broadband access (b) slow internet access (c) computers without internet access?
 * What kinds of network externalities are there to globalization? How much are the separate regions separate networks (they will be in some respects but not others)? What are the network externalities of language (is global electronic communication making language more "tippy")?