Interesting Links

The Future of News Media

The Apple iPad will probably change the face of traditional print media. With stocks like News International on single digit PEs, having just increased the earnings forecasts, it is time to examine the future of media. Just as telco operators are beginning to show signs of life, there are some signs that old style media might have a future. Here is a debate between Arianne Huffington and Axel Springer’s ceo. Now watch the Facebook mobile strategy video below.

Sensational demonstration on why you will pay for content

Wired magazine gives a demonstration on how the iPad will lead to great magazines and content that we will pay for.

Russia

Here is a video discussion with Nassim Taleb, Marc Faber and Hugh Hendry about where and in what to invest.  The panel session takes place in Russia; when you click on the link make sure you hit the English button, otherwise you’ll hear it in Russian. Hugh Hendry sounds like Scott Fitzgerald in the Crack Up, or a foot note from one of Nietzsche’s minor works. Someone should tell him to loosen-up; this is investment, not a Satanic struggle. As for investing in Russia itself, which one delegate argues for, it might worth remembering what Chekov said: Russia is an enormous plain across which wander mischievous men. I would also recommend that any potential investor read, The Oligarchs by David Hoffman, and Black Earth by Andrew Meier anything by Anna Politiskaya, and listen closely to people like Bill Browder and George Soros, both of whom know the market intimately.

Big Ideas in Biology

This is a video lecture of Sir Paul Nurse, speaking at the Royal Society earlier this week about the biggest ideas of biology. Nurse, a leading geneticist, has won a Nobel prize, explains that the most recent Big Idea is cells are highly complex systems built of networks that carry out the processing of information. The implications of this are not encouraging for drug discovery and the curing of disease because Nurse suggests we do not yet have the tools to unravel these systems.  I attended this lecture and   bumped in to both Mike Lynch (Autonomy) and David Potter (founder of Psion, the company that originated the Symbian mobile phone operating system). They, like other IT people, grasp the use of powerful computing systems is one of the ways that we will better grasp the inner workings of cells.

Mark Gerstenharber

CNBC interview with Mark Gerstenharber, former right hand man of Julian Robertson and now head of a hedge fund called Argonaut. He has some interesting things to say on Greece and the lack of jobs and consumer demand in the US economy. Growth will be hard to come by, which backs up our notion that the right areas of tech will outperform.

Facebook's mobile strategy

Here is a 16 minute video presentation given by a senior Facebook executive outlining the company’s mobile strategy. This is the big year for mobile content, as this video underscores. One interesting nugget, Facebook believes that mobile users are more engaged with the service than those on a desk top. For ‘engaged’ read more like to pay for stuff.

A new era for advertising

This link takes you through to a short video presentation by a senior executive from Facebook. He explains all about Facebook Connect, which could become a very important development for media companies and their hopes of getting paid. Very interesitng.

Paul Krugman

A video of a presentation just given to MIT by Paul Krugman.  One point he highlights is that it is still too early to end the fiscal stimulus. Sober and provocative.

Stem Cells and Aging

An interesting report from the frontiers of medical research. In some cases stemcells might be able to reverse premature aging.

Republican renaissance

This comes from the American Thinker and focuses on the resurgence of Republican fortunes. This is likely to be a bad year for Democrats.

Cyber attacks

Fascinating news story abour a cyber attack that has affected 75,000 computers.

That supreme court ruling

Ronald Dworkin, a noted US legal expert, examines the bizarre and dangerous decision of by the US Supreme Court to allow companies and pressure groups to make political donations. Against the opposition of their four colleagues, five right-wing Supreme Court justices have now guaranteed that big corporations can spend unlimited funds on political advertising in any political election.

Apple and Facebook Equal Content's New Golden Age

Without bandwidth everything sucks. But the big bandwidth problem is not the speed of your ADSL or your 3G connection. The bandwidth of human consciousness is the real bottleneck that slows internet access. Anyone who cracks this has a chance to be rich and  powerful like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Page & Brin or Rupert Murdoch 

The human bandwidth problem has googlesque implications for the sale of content and applications on the internet. One of the best surveys of the problem can be found in The User Illusion. 

We are only consciously aware of about one millionth of the data flooding into our subconscious minds from our senses. Apple, Google and Facebook grasped the issue of human bandwidth better than any other companies. Their success might lead to a golden age for media companies like New Corp. That's the good news. The bad news is it might lead to the balkinization of the internet.  The human bandwidth problem is easy to describe but close to impossible to solve. Apple cracked it, which is why the iPhone is so successful. Google cracked it too, which is why it is the dominant internet company.  

When you're sat at a desktop you have the time to doodle around the internet. You don’t have that time when you use a smart phone or an iPad. This year, according to Ericsson, most access to the internet will come from  mobile devices. Over the coming two to three years the number of users on the internet is likely to increase from 1.7bn users to close to 3 billion - nearly half the population of the world. The masses will not be able to use smartphones and other handheld devices unless designers crack the human bandwidth problem. Make access easy and quick. This will change the nature of the internet. 

The Future

The future of the Web is all around us. It is Facebook, and Facebook Connect; it is Twitter; it is the Apps Store and maybe it's Google Buzz. It probably isn’t Google Wave because this service requires too much time to master, it is aimed at Geeks.  The successful applications make life easier and more convenient in a way that Google search did for the desktop. Facebook Connect allows us to use our friends and contact group to filter our content. That is the neatest way of working with our bandwidth limitations. This method also allows Facebook to learn more about us so that it can better target content, services and ads. Better targeting is good for our limited conscious bandwidth.  

This could mean that content companies will find it easier to get paid. First off, there is likely to be a bidding war for good content as the world fills up with mobile devices.  When the iPad launched Macmillan books were pulled off Amazon's web site because the two companies couldn't agree a price for e-books. Instead, Macmillan did a deal with Apple. A day or so later Amazon relented and paid Macmillan more. This, I think, will become the sign of the times. There will be more bidders for content as the Android fiefdom, the Facebook fiefdom and  the Apple fiefdom - just to name a few- need content to keep their customers satisfied.

And what of those customers? You can still get free music and TV problems on the internet so why bother with iTunes? The reason we do is that these services make it easy to download and pay for content. We trust the service and know that we aren't breaking the law. 

Apple has a payment platform that works. The iPad will see the company expand this to other forms of content, such as newspapers, magazine subscriptions and books. This means that News Corp and content providers have a platform on which they can reach an enormous audience. In a world of specialist devices, like e-readers, iPads and smart-phones, it will be easier to get paid than in a world dominated by PCs. There is evidence that consumers find it easier to use a phone to pay for something than they do a computer.

From an investment point of view it's time to look at content again. As the internet becomes more dominated by fiefdoms, controlled by Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook or someone else content is likely to become more valuable. Apple’s attempt to win Macmillan from Amazon is therefore a sign of the times. Some of the world's biggest media companies are selling on single digit PEs, have just increased earnings and are unloved. They also have good yields and global franchises. 

The flip side of all this is that the Web is going to become more corporate. Each of us is going to have to make a Satanic bargain - ease of use and richness of user experience in return for a lack of privacy and freedom. Are you prepared to make that bargain?