Lightbulb Factory

May 14th 2012

Vegemite abroad
How do you market a product people hate?

Is it better to be a copycat in business?

For businesses, being good at copying is at least as important as being innovative

 Fly anywhere, any time, for life
When a marketing campaign attracts a few customers too many?

Luxury goods in China
Riding the gilded tiger

Valuing Facebook
Zuckerberg’s rocket, ready for lift-off

May 9th 2012

Lonesome highway
People are travelling less often, particularly by car. But Britain has not become a nation of hermits

The tube goes commerical
Fancy your name on a tube stop?

When clever one-liners go wrong
Don’t assume you can see what is right in front of you

How to publish a bestseller
Publishers used to tell readers what was hot. Now it’s the other way round

Facebook’s flotation
No longer price-less

March 22nd 2012

News of the world
To survive online, newspapers are seeking a worldwide audience, who’s doing it well?

Online video in China
A merger of Youku and Tudou could increase costs for advertisers

February 27th 2012

Shopping and the internet: Making it click
Retailers are striving to combine the advantages of physical shops with the benefits of online selling

Enhanced e-books: Truly moving literature
The next frontier for nervous publishers

Platform wars: Is the PC’s dominance coming to an end?
A history of personal computing

February 20th 2012

Apple in China
End of the iPad?

European carmakers: Too many cars, too few buyers
Luxury cars are speeding ahead; lesser brands are stalled

Google and online privacy
A cookie monster?

This time it’s serious
America is becoming a less attractive place to do business

February 13th 2012

Social networking for scientists: Professor Facebook
More connective tissue may make academia more efficient

Monitoring movements
Gestures of intent

ZuRich
The cost of living across the globe

Groupon
At a loss

February 6th 2012

Floating Facebook: The value of friendship
Facebook is likely to become a gargantuan company. That will bring risks as well as rewards

Press regulation: Guarding the guardians
The phone-hacking scandal has led to calls for stricter press regulation. Publishers are scrambling for a solution before one is imposed on them

Social media: #AfricaTweets
A new report details the use of Twitter in Africa. Here is the short version

January 23rd 2012

Flat-panel displays
Cracking up

Urbanising China: A nation of city slickers
A first in Chinese history: city-dwellers outnumber the rural population

SOPA: Web statistics
How many people saw the SOPA blackout?

January 3rd 2012

Social media: too much buzz?
Social media provides huge opportunities, but will bring huge problems

Ethnic advertising: One message, or many?
The uses and limitations of ethnic ads

Insulting advertisements
When rudeness sells

December 19th 2011

Sex and advertising: Retail therapy
How Ernest Dichter, an acolyte of Sigmund Freud, revolutionised marketing

Big and clever: Why large firms are often more inventive than small ones
Why large firms are often more inventive than small ones

Advertising: Four more years
The doyen of French advertising shows no sign of slowing down, still less of standing down

The future of film
Going to the movies again?

November 28th 2011

E-commerce in China: The great leap online
China will become the world’s most valuable market for e-commerce

Facebook and social connectivity
Closer friends

A world of bluestockings
Women are now more highly educated than men, but they don’t get the jobs to match

November 21st 2011

Social networking
Online pecking order

A guide to goodness
Want to know if a product is virtuous? There’s an app for that

Google Music: Battle of the bands
The web giant launches a rival to Apple’s iTunes

Retailing in America: ’Tis the season to be frugal
Some retailers will thrive this holiday season, but most won’t

November 7th 2011

Personalised news
The struggle to make money out of news on tablets

(This article refers to a Pew Research Center report into the tablet revolution and what it means for news, commissioned by The Economist Group. To download this report, click here)

Retailing: Spies in your wallet
Loyalty cards do not make customers loyal, but retailers are devoted to them

The reality-television business
Many of the world’s most popular television shows were invented in Britain. But competition is growing

Wikipedia’s fund-raising
The online encyclopedia needs its users’ money and volunteers’ time. Gaining the first is the easier task

October 31st 2011

Be afraid: machines can now see what we are thinking
Mind-reading – the terrible truth

Nokia’s new phones: Not drowning, but waving
The struggling phonemaker shows off its first Windows handsets

IBM’s new boss: Steady as she goes
A smooth transition at Big Blue

Human decision-making: Not so smart now
The father of behavioural economics considers the feeble human brain

October 24th 2011

Webcams can now spot which ads catch your gaze
Facial monitoring can make advertising more effective by reading your mood and checking your vital signs

The economics of Groupon
Cursed by copycats

Blog: Streaming video
How the film studios are now desperate to rewind their video businesses back to better times

Schumpeter: The art of selling
The death of the salesman has been greatly exaggerated

October 10th 2011

Branding Japan as “cool”: No limits, no laws
The beautiful people join hands with the bureaucrats

Popular concerns
Making the monoculture

Text messages
The end of an affair

RIM and its troubles: BlackBerry blues
Research In Motion can ill afford embarrassing service interruptions

October 10th 2011

Digital newspapers: Another brick in the wall
The rapid rise of newspaper paywalls

Steve Jobs: A genius departs
The astonishing career of the world’s most revered chief executive

Alcohol in Africa: Keep on walking
Persuading Africans to switch from beer to Scotch

October 3rd 2011

Social-media data
Making sense of a torrent of tweets

Amazon: The Walmart of the web
The internet giant’s new tablet computer fits its strategy of developing big businesses by charging small prices

Samsung: The next big bet
The world’s biggest information-technology firm is diving into green technology and the health business. It should take care; its rivals should take notice

The fashion industry: The glossy posse
Catwalks in the West, action in the East

Marketing tennis starsThe Djok’s on the sponsors
The Djok’s on the sponsors

September 26th 2011

Hidden Persuaders II: Secrets of the marketing profession
A marketing guru reveals some of the secrets of his profession

Catering to Chinese tourists: Have money, will travel
A billion pairs of itchy feet

Women and jobs: What women do
Economic growth has surprisingly little effect on the wage gap

Showmanship in the tech industry
The fight for Steve Jobs’s crown

September 19th 2011

Microsoft and Intel: Wintel swings
The marriage that dominated personal computing becomes more open

Schumpeter: Green growth
Some emerging-world companies are combining growth with greenery

The revival of independent film: Scripts, not effects
Independent films are at last recovering from the slump

Frankfurt Motor Show: Autoficial intelligence
Where does the car end and the phone begin?

Pet care in Latin America: Man’s best amigo
Profits from pooches are more than petty cash

September 12th 2011

The books business: Great digital expectations
Digitisation may have came late to book publishing, but it is transforming the business in short order

Tablets
Forking Android

Bookselling: Spine chilling
Mass-market retailing changed publishing before the e-book

Schumpeter: Long walk to innovation
South Africa has been slow to innovate. That may be changing

More trouble for Yahoo!: Portal exit
The internet company boots out its boss. But it will struggle to reboot its business

September 3rd 2011

E-readers and magazines
It’s still good to have gatekeepers

Doing business in Brazil
Rio or São Paulo?

Blog: Innovation
To boldly go where no start-up has gone before

Schumpeter: AT&T’s big merger blocked
Tripped at the altar

August 29th 2011

Tablet computers
Does the tablet market really exist?

Against the tide
Faced with the menace of the internet, Asia’s censors are not yet giving up the ghost

Steve Jobs resigns: The minister of magic steps down
Can Silicon Valley’s most disruptive firm prosper without its maker?

The internet in China: Bashing Baidu
State television fires on China’s Google

August 22nd 2011

The future of pay-television: Breaking the box
The pay-TV model, principal generator of profits and good programmes in the media business, is coming apart

Tata’s Nano: Stuck in low gear
A brilliant, cheap little car has been a marketing disaster

Illegal downloading and media investment: Spotting the pirates
File-sharing rates vary hugely from country to country—with consequences for local media industries and global cultural trade

Google’s takeover of Motorola Mobility: Patently different
The battle in the mobile industry takes an unexpected turn

August 15th 2011

Blog: British newspapers
Who benefited from the phone-hacking scandal?

Blog: Apple and Samsung’s symbiotic relationship
Slicing an Apple

Arab television: Battle of the box
Religious and political conflicts are played out on screen

Daily chart: Company histories
Corporate evolution

American business: Big Apple v Big Oil
Apple briefly becomes the world’s largest public company

August 8th 2011

Understanding the Indian consumer: The other Asian giant
Companies are scrambling to decode the Indian consumer

Internet companies: Attack of the clones
American web firms are battling foreign hordes that look remarkably similar

Innovation: Think different
Clay Christensen lays down some rules for innovators. But can innovation be learned?

Everyone’s a critic: Blogs, food and wine
Reviewing restaurants was once an art. Now people post their whims while they are chewing

August 2nd 2011

Face recognition: Anonymous no more
You can’t hide — from anybody

Chinese internet companies: An internet with Chinese characteristics
Online business in China is growing even faster than the offline sort. Local tastes and needs, as well as the state, are endowing it with distinctive features

Retail in Japan: Turning silver into gold
Stealth marketing to the elderly

Blog: High-definition TV
The Difference Engine: Beyond HDTV

July 25th 2011

3D films struggle: Flat expectations
3D films, cinema’s great hope, have become niche products

Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation: Last of the moguls
Rupert Murdoch is the last member of a dying breed. Time for him to step back

Sheryl Sandberg: The acceptable face of Facebook
Social skills for a social network

HTC’s patent problems: Android alert
Using Google’s Android software has given HTC a boost, but it may now make the Taiwanese handset-maker vulnerable to costly lawsuits

Indonesia’s middle class: Missing BRIC in the wall
A consumer boom masks familiar problems in South-East Asia’s biggest economy

July 18th 2011

Life in the global gutter: The popular press
Tabloids are a phenomenon worldwide, but they come in different varieties

The News International scandal: How to lose friends and alienate people
News Corporation looks likely to weather the News of the World scandal. But it may end up becalmed — and lose some crew to boot

Internet economies: Going local
The internet is not that global after all

Blog: Google’s new social network
Circles and the efficiency/serendipity trade-off

July 2nd 2011

Chinese investment in Europe: Streaks of red
Capital and companies from China are sidling into Europe

Schumpeter: Too much information
How to cope with data overload

Technology IPOs: Betting the farm
Zynga may be a good business, but the tech bubble is expanding

Blog: Mobile phones in India
A webless social network

Regulating the internet: Google’s enemies
The search giant’s antitrust headache gets bigger

June 27th 2011

Newspaper websites: The British are coming
Two newspapers take aim at America

Schumpeter: The bottom of the pyramid
Businesses are learning to serve the growing number of hard-up Americans

Blog: Internet companies
Beware the Hulu hoodoo

Blog: Digital music
Musical absolution

Blog: Art and technology
Knocking heads together

June 13th 2011

Internet companies: Welcome to IPOville
Social-media firms see champagne; others see bubbles

IBM’s centenary: The test of time
Which of today’s technology giants might still be standing tall a century after their founding?

Music and technology: Digitally remastered
The recorded-music business learns to love its enemy

Microsoft: Middle-aged blues
The software giant is grappling with a mid-life crisis

June 6th 2011

Monitor: Can Twitter predict the future?
Internet forecasting: Businesses are mining online messages to unearth consumers’ moods—and even make market predictions

Schumpeter: The angel and the monster
Mother Teresa and Lady Gaga are the latest icons of the leadership industry. Don’t laugh

Blog: Geosocial networking
The secret sexism of social media

Huawei: The long march of the invisible Mr Ren
China’s technology star needs to shine more openly

May 23rd 2011

Public relations: Slime-slinging
Flacks vastly outnumber hacks these days. Caveat lector

Retail in China: All eyes on Chinese aisles
Who will conquer China’s rampant retail market? Probably no one

Schumpeter: The Catalan kings
The management secrets of Barcelona Football Club

Blog: LinkedIn’s initial public offering
Social sizzler

May 16th 2011

Cinemas in India: Once upon a time in the east
A Latin American giant plans to modernise India’s fleapits

Silicon Valley and the technology industry: The new tech bubble
Irrational exuberance has returned to the internet world. Investors should beware

Africa’s growing middle class: Pleased to be bourgeois
A third of Africans now live on at least $2 per day

May 9th 2011

Innovation in online advertising: Mad Men are watching you
How real-time bidding will affect media companies

The global beer industry: Sell foam like soap
To maintain profit growth, brewers will need keen marketing

Schumpeter: Bamboo innovation
Beware of judging China’s innovation engine by the standards of Silicon Valley

Soap operas and development: Good trash
How television and radio shows can improve behaviour

May 3rd 2011

Corporate computing: Online reputations in the dirt
Serious glitches at Sony and Amazon have revived worries about the risks of handling data online

Advertising in Africa: Nigeria’s mad men
What ads say about doing business in Africa’s most populous country

Organising the web: The science of science
How to use the web to understand the way ideas evolve

Honda’s troubles: Civic unrest
Japan’s crisis hits Honda but it is not bad news for all in the motor trade

April 19th 2011

Out-of-home advertising: Billboard boom
The future of out-of-home advertising is rosy, and digital

Music stores: Their master’s voice
Independents need the industry’s last retailing giant to flourish

Social science: Wisdom about crowds
To model the behaviour of humans en masse, treat them as people, not molecules

Schumpeter: The case against globaloney
At last, some sense on globalisation

April 19th 2011

Facebook’s legal cases: Friends and enemies
As one legal battle over Facebook fades, another moves forward

The evolution of language: Babel or babble?
Languages all have their roots in the same part of the world. But they are not as similar to each other as was once thought

Radio and the internet: Tuning in
An old medium gets its digital act together

Schumpeter: Fail often, fail well
Companies have a great deal to learn from failure—provided they manage it successfully

April 12th 2011

Media’s ageing audiences: Peggy Sue got old
Viewers, listeners and readers are ageing fast. Oddly, media companies don’t regard that as a catastrophe

Mobile telecoms in Africa: Digital revolution
Makers of mobile devices see a new growth market

The troubles of Saab: A phoenix struggles to fly
Separated from GM, a Swedish carmaker finds the going tough

E-commerce and data security: The phishers’ big catch
A large theft of company e-mail lists causes controversy

April 5th 2011

Status displays: I’ve got you labelled
Clothes may make the man, but it is the label that really counts

Digital identities: Trolling for your soul
The price of civil online comments may be more power for Facebook

Online media distribution: Raging bulls
Music and television firms fret about their distributors’ new business models

Technology firms and health care: Heads in the cloud
Digitising America’s health records could be a huge business. Will it?

March 24th 2011

Group messaging: Fine-tuning the friends list
The next big thing in social media, maybe

Mobile telecoms in America: An audacious merger with a poor reception
AT&T’s ambitious bid to reshape America’s wireless market has spooked rivals. But it faces significant hurdles

China’s carmakers: Dream deferred
A Chinese car company carrying great expectations stalls

Running world football: Bin Hammam tackles Blatter
After 13 years in possession, soccer’s global boss faces a challenge

March 17th 2011

Online-coupon firms: Groupon anxiety
The online-coupon firm will have to move fast to retain its impressive lead

Hollywood and home entertainment: Unkind unwind
The film industry tries to revive the ailing home-entertainment business

Sports newspapers: Pink, and read all over
General newspapers can learn from the success of sporting dailies

Online privacy: Stopped in their tracks
A proposed privacy law could help as well as hurt America’s web companies

March 10th 2011

Dell and Hewlett-Packard: Rebooting their systems
Two computer giants prepare for a world no longer dominated by the PC

Electric cars: Roll on the posh electrics
Even makers of the most expensive cars are switching to electric and hybrid power

Fashion for the masses: Global stretch
When will Zara hit its limits?

Italian businesses: Keeping it in the family
The Bulgaris sell up. Other Italian family firms are still holding tight

Economics focus: The referee’s an anchor
A new book looks at the behavioural economics of sport

March 3rd 2011

Tablet computers: The second coming
Apple’s revamped iPad will be hard for its competitors to beat

Schumpeter: When stars go cuckoo
What John Galliano’s fall tells us about the perils of relying on creative geniuses

Japanese electronics firms: The mighty, fallen
Ex-world-beaters swallow their pride and do deals with foreign rivals

Diageo’s deals: Replenishing the drinks cabinet
Raki with a bourbon chaser?

February 24th 2011

Hand-held digital games: Hand to hand combat
A new threat to Sony and Nintendo

Companies and information: The leaky corporation
Digital information is easy not only to store but also to leak. Companies must decide what they really need to keep secret, and how best to do so

Furniture shops: The secret of IKEA’s success
Lean operations, shrewd tax planning and tight control

Business and commodity prices: Everyday higher prices
Manufacturers and retailers are desperate to pass on higher commodity prices to their customers

Bad publicity: Better to be reviled than ignored
Negative publicity is good for unknown firms, bad for established ones

February 17th 2011

Cloud computing: A market for computing power
A new spot market makes cloud computing a commodity

China’s luxury boom: The Middle Blingdom
Sales of costly trifles are even better than you think

Hollywood goes global: Bigger abroad
Forget the Oscars. Films need foreign viewers, not American prizes

Schumpeter: The art of management
Business has much to learn from the arts

February 10th 2011

Nokia at the crossroads: Blazing platforms
It is not just the world’s biggest handset-maker that has lost its edge. So has Europe’s whole mobile-phone industry

3D printing: The printed world
Three-dimensional printing from digital designs will transform manufacturing and allow more people to start making things

AOL and the Huffington Post: Content couple
An internet veteran weds a youthful online bride

Internet blackouts: Reaching for the kill switch
The costs and practicalities of switching off the internet in Egypt and elsewhere

Business and psychology: How firms should fight rumours
Denial is useless. Spread happy truths instead

February 3rd 2011

Rupert Murdoch’s iPad Daily: Who needs paper?
A new digital paper tests a new model for news

Crowdsourced film: Best. Day. Ever.
A film made by thousands is a hit at the Sundance festival

Rugby in America: Worth a try
More and more Americans are being converted to the sport

German business: A machine running smoothly
German companies great and small are making the most of globalisation. Their success owes more to judgment than to luck

January 27th 2011

Attitudes to business: Milton Friedman goes on tour
A survey of attitudes to business turns up some intriguing national differences

Budget airlines: In the cheap seats
With traffic expected to slow, low-cost air carriers are getting fancy

Mobile services in poor countries: Not just talk
Clever services on cheap mobile phones make a powerful combination – especially in poor countries

The changing face of Japanese retailing: The co-op strikes back
Small grocery stores use Tesco tactics to beat the supermarkets

January 20th 2011

Burberry and globalisation: A checkered story
Burberry’s revival reflects the potential of globalisation, and its limits

Cigarettes in films: Smoked out
Can a film of a smoker trigger the act?

Apple: The boss is unwell
Can a Jobsless Apple flourish?

Schumpeter: Nipping at their heels
Firms from the developing world are rapidly catching up with their old-world competitors

January 13th 2011

Schumpeter: Logoland
Why consumers balk at companies’ efforts to rebrand themselves

User-generated content: Wikipleadia
The promise and perils of crowdsourcing content

A crowded car industry:From Big Three to Magnificent Seven
America’s carmakers are back. A posse of tough competitors is waiting for them

Indian film: Death in Delhi
Indian film-makers are tackling difficult subjects with a light touch

January 6th 2011

Social media: Is Facebook really worth $50 billion?
And will its new financing scheme fall foul of regulators?

Schumpeter: The tussle for talent
The best companies are obsessed by “the vital few”

Public Relations: Ego goes solo
What Matthew Freud’s manoeuvres say about the future of PR

Bold Newspapers: The crucible of print
Britain’s embattled newspapers are leading the world in innovation

December 16th 2010

The tyranny of choice: You choose
If you can have everything in 57 varieties, making decisions becomes hard work

Public relations: Rise of the image men
PR Man has conquered the world. He still isn’t satisfied

Age and happiness: The U-bend of life
Why, beyond middle age, people get happier as they get older

Italian television: The glory of Berlusconi
Like its founder, Mediaset is tacky, unfairly advantaged—and resilient

Nollywood: Lights, camera, Africa
Movies are uniting a disparate continent, and dividing it too

December 9th 2010

Difference engine: Better and bigger than Wi-Fi
Wireless networking: The spectrum released by TV’s switch to digital broadcasting will soon be put to good use

Health care in the Middle East: Sun, shopping and surgery
Can the Gulf attract medical tourists?

Perfume: Making sense of scents
A new way to describe a fragrance

Chinese business: Where are the profits?
Sales are soaring; margins are meagre

December 2nd 2010

Google and antitrust: Engine trouble
The European Union is right to take a closer look at Google

Internet governance: Routing it right
The survival of the internet’s governing body has come at a price

The internet: How long will Google’s magic last?
It flourished during the first phase of the internet. The next one may be tougher

November 29th 2010

Johnson blog: Likez-vous this ad?

November 25th 2010

London’s high-tech start-ups: Silicon Roundabout
A patch of east London has quickly become a world-class technology hub. Britain’s government has taken an interest; others might too

Schumpeter: Mittel-management
Germany’s midsized companies have a lot to teach the world

America’s retailers: Holiday hopes
Retailers are expecting happy holidays, but not all shoppers are full of cheer

November 18th 2010

Innovation in IT: The liquefaction of hardware
The rise of the virtual computer

Television: China’s got viewers
Despite government meddling and rampant piracy, commercial television is surging in the Middle Kingdom

Spamming dissected: A great deal out there
The flow of spam is disrupted, briefly

November 11th 2010

Schumpeter: Sticking together
Advice on managing partnerships, courtesy of Keith Richards and Michael Eisner

Economic indicators from the web: Dotconomy
Internet firms are becoming a valuable source of economic insights

British magazine publishing: Read all over
The rise of the supermarket rag

Media freedom in Russia: Smashing the messengers
Another brutal assault on a reporter shows the dangers to media freedom

November 4th 2010

Face value with Martin Sorrell: King of the Mad Men
As the advertising giant he built celebrates its 25th birthday, Sir Martin Sorrell is once again full of optimism

Pop-ups: Up, up and away
How an alternative trend went mainstream

October 28th 2010

Computer gaming: Pros clicking at war
An American firm wants to turn computer games into a global spectator sport

Technology firms and Barack Obama: End of the silicon honeymoon
The love affair that technology firms had with America’s president is fading fast

Blogging in China: Breaching the great firewall
Home-grown microblogs are succeeding where Twitter failed

Virtual outsourcing: Mobile work
A way to earn money by texting

Human communication: Gesture politics
People talk a lot, but their hand signals may convey more useful information

October 21st 2010

Luxury goods: Bling is back
A surprising recovery in luxury goods

Smart-phone lawsuits: The great patent battle
Nasty legal spats between tech giants may be here to stay

China’s muffled media: Gagging to be free
Momentum builds for a freer press

Media freedom in Latin America: Shooting the messenger
Threats from criminals and governments

Archiving the web: Born digital
National libraries start to preserve the web, but cannot save everything

October 14th 2010

Consumer goods: Basket cases
The recession has changed people’s shopping habits

Anti-censorship: Hidden truths
A new way of beating the web’s censors

The rise of Sky: No wonder they’re scared
How Sky has consolidated its grip over British viewers

Innovation in China: Patents, yes; ideas, maybe
Chinese firms are filing lots of patents. How many represent good ideas?

Prisons and mobile phones: Bricking the intruders
If mobile phones can’t be kept out of prisons, can they be made useless?

Law, politics and internet addresses: tough.ly/treated
Shortened web links are convenient, but they come at a price

Babbage: The cookie that never crumbles

October 7th 2010

What’s working in music: Having a ball
In the supposedly benighted music business, a lot of things are making money

Video communication: Beaming in Grandma
Videophones have finally reached the living room

Microsoft’s mobile operating system: Windows or curtains
The software giant is desperate to make a splash in the smart-phone business

Schumpeter: The other demographic dividend
Emerging markets are teeming with young entrepreneurs

September 30th 2010

Innovation and technology: Well, what a good idea!
The wellsprings of innovation and the irresistible force of technology

The return of advertising: The box rocks
As the advertising market recovers, two clear winners are emerging: the internet and television

Tablet computers: Chasing King Apple
BlackBerry’s creator joins a growing list of pretenders to tablet-computing’s throne

Rural broadband: Wiring Arcadia
The private sector is trying to bridge the “digital divide”

Prisa and Spanish media: The cost of Liberty
A Spanish media giant gets a hand from a homeless billionaire

Retailing: The beast goes on safari
Can Wal-Mart make it in Africa?

Personal urban transport: The bubble car is back
Cheap, small and simple—an idea from the 1950s bubbles up again

September 23rd 2010

Schumpeter: The wiki way
Two cyber-gurus take a second look at how the internet is changing the world

Newspapers in India: Where print makes profits
Old-fashioned papers are thriving in India

Smartphones in South Korea: LG’s woes
Will hiring the founder’s grandson save LG Electronics?

Data privacy in Germany: No pixels, please, we’re German
German privacy attitudes were not designed for a digital age

September 16th 2010

Print on the iPad: A smashing success
The iPad is transforming media firms, and frustrating them

Healthy food: Yuck
Making healthy food is easy. Making people eat it is not

Schumpeter: Down with fun
The depressing vogue for having fun at work

September 9th 2010

Online shopping: Selling becomes sociable
E-commerce is becoming more social and more connected to the offline world

Schumpeter: The will to power
Why some people have power over companies and others don’t

Babbage blog: Google’s guessing gain

September 2nd 2010

Schumpeter’s notebook: Media studies

The internet: The web’s new walls
How the threats to the internet’s openness can be averted

The future of the internet: A virtual counter-revolution
The internet has been a great unifier of people, companies and online networks. Powerful forces are threatening to balkanise it

E-communication and society: A cyber-house divided
Online as much as in the real world, people bunch together in mutually suspicious groups—and in both realms, peacemaking is an uphill struggle

Technology and protest: A town crier in the global village
A cross-border fraternity that strives to be seen, heard and heeded

Online television: Hogging the remote
Old-media firms are firmly in control of internet video

Mobile internet in emerging markets: The next billion geeks
How the mobile internet will transform the BRICI countries

August 26th 2010

Schumpeter: The innovation machine
Two gurus look at the perspiration side of innovation

Location-based social networks: Where are you?
A tale of fake mayors and real deals

Disney’s schools in China: Middle Kingdom meets Magic Kingdom
A Western media company offers a product the Chinese can’t resist: education

August 19th 2010

Mobile phones in South-East Asia: Talk is cheap
In a saturated market, firms need customers to buy bells and whistles

4G mobile networks: From Russia with bandwidth
A Russian start-up shows how 4G wireless might work

Corporate psychology: How to tell when your boss is lying
It’s not just that his lips are moving

August 12th 2010

International broadcasters: Waves in the web
Western state-backed news outfits are struggling to keep their influence in the developing world

Net neutrality: No, these are special puppies
Google has joined Verizon in lobbying to erode net neutrality

Nature on television: Cue the fish
Why natural history is such a good business

August 5th 2010

The United Arab Emirates and BlackBerrys: Forbidden telecoms fruit
Why the emirates fear the uncontrolled use of BlackBerrys

Barnes & Noble: The final chapter?
The world’s best-known bookstore puts itself up for sale

Online games in China: A hundred million happy geeks
But please, no sex or subversion

Biggest broadband providers: China clicks
The world’s biggest broadband providers

Babbage: Technology Blog
The Difference Engine: Rewiring the brain

July 29th 2010

Information technology in transition: The end of Wintel
As Microsoft and Intel move apart, computing becomes multipolar

Television in Germany: The last redoubt
Another push to sell pay-television to the Germans

SKS comes to market: Microfight
Can microlenders serve shareholders and the poor?

July 22nd 2010

Media’s analogue holdouts: Digitisation and its discontents
Why some media outfits still refuse to go online

Selling luxury goods online: The chic learn to click
Luxury firms are digital laggards, but some are catching up

Social networks and statehood: The future is another country
Despite its giant population, Facebook is not quite a sovereign state—but it is beginning to look and act like one

July 15th 2010

The race to organise television: Struggling for control
The humble channel-zapper is evolving in ways that will shape television’s future

Apple’s iPhone imbroglio: Antennaegate
A minor glitch in Apple’s latest phone hints at bigger problems

Online grocers: Keep on trucking
Internet grocery shopping is booming. If only it were profitable

Language blog: What a difference a word makes

July 8th 2010

A special report on gambling: Shuffle up and deal
The internet is radically changing the business of gambling. Now policy must catch up, argues Jon Fasman (interviewed here)

A special report on gambling: Cutting off the arms
Slot machines are becoming mobile

Internet investment’s new champions: The emerging online giants
DST, Naspers and Tencent have made promising internet investments in many emerging markets. Now even Western internet financiers are emulating them

Media firms in Abu Dhabi: Studios in the sands
Western media companies are flocking to a city without freedom of speech

July 1st 2010

The threat from the internet: Cyberwar
It is time for countries to start talking about arms control on the internet

Charging for content: Media’s two tribes
Some media outfits chase scale, while others pursue premium pricing

Economics focus: The click and the dead
E-commerce favours large companies but only because that is what people want

Sportswear: The swoosh heard around the world
Nike’s strong presence at the World Cup highlights its strategy for growth

June 24th 2010

The evolving blogosphere: An empire gives way
Blogs are growing a lot more slowly. But specialists still thrive

Copyrighting facts: Owning the news:
Copyrighting facts as well as words

The effects of the internet: Fast forward
Fear of a fried future

June 10th 2010

Leaders: Not dead yet: American newspapers
Newspapers have cut their way out of crisis. More radical surgery will be needed

The strange survival of ink: Newspapers
Newspapers have escaped cataclysm by becoming leaner and more focused

Out of thin air: Mobile banking
The behind-the-scenes logistics of Kenya’s mobile-money miracle

E-commerce takes off in Japan: Up and away
Japanese online retailing is on the rise, and its champion is spreading its wings

June 3rd 2010

The future of the tablet computer: Not written in stone
The iPad is a success, but other tablets may not be

Facebook: Village people
How to avoid trouble

May 27th 2010

Promoting innovation: Growth on the cheap
The OECD tells governments how to unleash business’s creative potential
Internet freedom in Pakistan: First Facebook, then the world
An annoying web page prompts a worrisome precedent
Nanotechnology: The coolness of tiny things
A new way of stopping machines overheating is being developed

May 20th 2010

Facebook, Google and privacy: Dicing with data
Google and especially Facebook should change the way they look after people’s personal information

Privacy and the internet: Lives of others
Facebook and Google face a backlash, from users and regulators alike, over the way they have handled sensitive data

Schumpeter: Overstretched
Many people who kept their jobs are working too hard. What can companies do about it?

May 13th 2010

Work in the digital age: A clouded future
Online services that match freelancers with piecework are growing in hard times
Barack Obama’s rant against technology: Don’t shoot the messenger
America’s president joins a long (but wrong) tradition of technophobia
Spotting video piracy: To catch a thief
A new way to scan digital videos for copyright infringement

May 6th 2010

Politics and Twitter: Sweet to tweet
Twitter makes politicians seem more accessible. To matter, it needs to change their behaviour
The worldwide cinema boom: The box office strikes back
Once incidental to Hollywood’s fortunes, cinema is now the fastest-growing and most innovative part of the film business
Greeting cards: Message of hope
Card companies believe technology will bring a smile to special occasions

April 29th 2010

Special report: Changing the channel
Television is adapting better to technological change than any other media business

Special report: Beyond the box
Television rushes online, only to wonder where the money is

Special report: Ahoy there!
The perils of piracy

Special report: The lazy medium
How people really watch television

Special report: An emergency screen
Mobile television is unlikely to take off

Special report: The killer app
Television needs sport almost as much as sport needs television

Special report: Who needs it?
Three-dimensional television is coming, whether you want it or not

Special report: Here, there and everywhere
Television is spreading in new directions

Special report: An interactive future
The last remaining mass medium needs to engage with its audience and target its offering

April 22nd 2010

Media and politics: The shock of the old
Despite expectations, traditional media are dominating the election

Online retailing in China: Clicks trump bricks
After a slow start, internet shopping explodes in China

Cyber-crime: Ne’er the twain
International efforts to police the net remain deadlocked