Is it a good idea to encourage ALL employees to trade in these markets? Should insiders and/or highly uninformed people be allowed to trade? Do they help or hurt the market?
In the case, Dolores Haze, a manager on a search quality team, gave the opinion that the Google Prediction Market (GPM) was not a lot of help to her or her team. She felt it was her job to know the status of all projects. When a project in her division was posted on GPM, she knew what the outcome would be because she was so close to the project. When the market agreed with her, she wasn’t surprised and felt GPM did not offer her any new advantage. Instead, it simply affirmed her intuition. While she agreed that the GPM created excitement about projects Google-wide, she did not believe the GPM should be considered a resource when it came to making company decisions.
While I believe the GPM is great in terms of motivating people to learn what’s going on company-wide, I found it interesting that some people used the GPM to make trades hoping they would intentionally mislead the market. They had the advantage because they were so close to the project and felt strongly about the overall outcome. Still, it appears that GPM is yet another example of the “long tail” effect in that 80% of the trades are made by 20% of the people. Most people trade only once or twice each quarter. Therefore, the frequent traders are really only competing with themselves. I believe Google should continue to encourage all employees to trade in the market in order to get more accurate market prediction results.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Threadless
In what other industries or areas would Threadless’ community-driven product development model work well? And not so well?
I loved this case because I think Threadless has such an intriguing business model. Loyal customers visit the website each week to order their own unique, custom t-shirt wardrobe. I spent an hour looking at designs instead of writing this blog. This type of community-driven product development model has worked well on other websites we have discussed this semester like Etsy.com where buyers can directly communicate with artists and commission customized product. Unlike Threadless, however, the buyer is the designer, not the seller. Threadless is unique in that website visitors vote on the designs printed each week. The beauty of Threadless is the community of designers, voters, bloggers, and consumers that has emerged from this simple screen t-shirt business. T-shirts are a very basic, inexpensive product. When you print a unique design on them, they transform from a plain tee to a work of art.
In one of the videos in the case, the founder compares the website to an art gallery and I think that is an extremely valid point. People are going to Threadless to look first and purchase second. People are interested in the art and then being able to wear their “t-shirt art” as an expression of their connection to the community or the design. Threadless has kept is simple, offering t-shirts for men, women, children, hoodies, and some kid’s clothing. They are not offering customized hats, socks, underwear, etc. They have stuck their core competency: design something that is perfect to print on a t-shirt. I am not sure this type of business model would work for any type of customized product such as art, crafts, furniture, because the end products might be too complex for quick mass production and turnaround. Threadless has kept it simple. The t-shirt is the perfect blank canvas on which to print a design quickly, efficiently, and then sell over a million t-shirts.
I loved this case because I think Threadless has such an intriguing business model. Loyal customers visit the website each week to order their own unique, custom t-shirt wardrobe. I spent an hour looking at designs instead of writing this blog. This type of community-driven product development model has worked well on other websites we have discussed this semester like Etsy.com where buyers can directly communicate with artists and commission customized product. Unlike Threadless, however, the buyer is the designer, not the seller. Threadless is unique in that website visitors vote on the designs printed each week. The beauty of Threadless is the community of designers, voters, bloggers, and consumers that has emerged from this simple screen t-shirt business. T-shirts are a very basic, inexpensive product. When you print a unique design on them, they transform from a plain tee to a work of art.
In one of the videos in the case, the founder compares the website to an art gallery and I think that is an extremely valid point. People are going to Threadless to look first and purchase second. People are interested in the art and then being able to wear their “t-shirt art” as an expression of their connection to the community or the design. Threadless has kept is simple, offering t-shirts for men, women, children, hoodies, and some kid’s clothing. They are not offering customized hats, socks, underwear, etc. They have stuck their core competency: design something that is perfect to print on a t-shirt. I am not sure this type of business model would work for any type of customized product such as art, crafts, furniture, because the end products might be too complex for quick mass production and turnaround. Threadless has kept it simple. The t-shirt is the perfect blank canvas on which to print a design quickly, efficiently, and then sell over a million t-shirts.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Wikipedia
How do Wikipedia’s processes for creating and modifying articles ever lead to high-quality results?
Wikipedia's 12 million articles (2.8 million in the English Wikipedia) have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. But does this collaboration lead to a high quality Internet reference tool? Wikipedia is a true “wiki” in that articles undergo a formal peer-review process and changes to articles are made available immediately to all readers. No article is owned by its creator or any other editor, or is vetted by any recognized authority. Except for a few vandalism-prone pages that can be edited only by established users or in extreme cases only by administrators, every article may be edited anonymously or with a user account. Wikipedia has never claimed to guarantee its validity as a “high quality” reference but its success stems from the fact articles are often self-policed by users and frequent editors who have made it their mission to make this wiki as valid internet reference as possible. I use Wikipedia on a daily basis to look things up and even with its easy open source editing model, I have never looked at the history of an article to determine its quality, validity or look to see if the article I am reading was recently vandalized. Like millions of other students, I generally use Wikipedia as an informal reference tool. I understand that it is not acceptable to use as a scholarly or primary reference in academic work but I will continue to use it as a stepping stone to learn more about anything and everything. There are lots of well written articles on Wikipedia but user anonymity means author bias and bogus information will never be eliminated.
Wikipedia's 12 million articles (2.8 million in the English Wikipedia) have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. But does this collaboration lead to a high quality Internet reference tool? Wikipedia is a true “wiki” in that articles undergo a formal peer-review process and changes to articles are made available immediately to all readers. No article is owned by its creator or any other editor, or is vetted by any recognized authority. Except for a few vandalism-prone pages that can be edited only by established users or in extreme cases only by administrators, every article may be edited anonymously or with a user account. Wikipedia has never claimed to guarantee its validity as a “high quality” reference but its success stems from the fact articles are often self-policed by users and frequent editors who have made it their mission to make this wiki as valid internet reference as possible. I use Wikipedia on a daily basis to look things up and even with its easy open source editing model, I have never looked at the history of an article to determine its quality, validity or look to see if the article I am reading was recently vandalized. Like millions of other students, I generally use Wikipedia as an informal reference tool. I understand that it is not acceptable to use as a scholarly or primary reference in academic work but I will continue to use it as a stepping stone to learn more about anything and everything. There are lots of well written articles on Wikipedia but user anonymity means author bias and bogus information will never be eliminated.
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