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 the future of publishing

We wanted shock and awe, instead we got shock and confusion. What to make of the launch of the iPad? The first rule for the folks who live at Infinite Loop, Cupertino, is that great products create their own market. Second, Steve Jobs actually knows quite a bit about publishing and print. With that in mind we shouldn't get too fixated on the iPad as a Kindle killer.


When it comes to divining the the future of publishing  activate the link. It will take you through to a fascinating mock up of what an e-magazine or e-newspaper could  look like. Think National Geographic, Life - um maybe Playboy - with high quality graphics, some of which mutate into speaking videos when you click on them. This is surely the kind of thing that someone would watch on the iTab. The Kindle is better suited for long reading sessions, but the iTab still has great potential  in the publishing arena.


As for its prospects in other markets, we will have to wait and see what the Apps  Community make of it. My guess is that the ITab will take off slowly but will then build considerable momentum a year or more out. Video traffic, which is already growing at 130 compound, according to Cisco is the real market for this device. I think a number of vertical markets, such as medical, could also run with the iTab.


The really big news out of Apple this week though has to be the astonishing breakthrough the company has made in Asia. Asia as a per centage of profits, doubled to 20%. Sales in Taiwan and Japan were up several fold and in China, 200,000 legal iPhones have been activated. I say legal because several hundred thousand have been smuggled into the country. China Unicom confirms that 70% of those buying an iPhone are switching to 3G. 


To put that number in context, the iPhone sells for $1000 dollars in China, a country were per capita income is around $3,400. Furthermore, you cannot use WiFi on the official iPhone, though you can if you smuggle one in. The new official number for 3G users in China is 13m. That could double this year. Chinese operators are a accident prone as their Western cousins. 3G wont be big there unless they embrace a device like the iPHone. Apple growth in Asia will be the single most important event of the coming year.


A few days after Apple announced, LG Electronics published a 70% drop in mobile profits. I think we have seen the high water mark for Asian handset makers. It used to be possible to travel the length and breadth of Asia without seeing an Apple product but that is now changing. Asian handset makers compete on hardware design, but that doesn't count for much in the Smart Paradigm. Apple can now fight on its own terms - applications and content. Asian handset makers and Nokia will struggle to equal the richness of the Apps Store. I wonder what Good Night Vienna is in Mandarin