The Low-Down

Aug 11, 2015

When a Tech Startup Is Not a Tech Company

Just as operating globally does not necessarily make you a global company, so using technology does not necessarily make you a tech company. The question is at what point that distinction will cease to matter. JL

Jim Kerstetter reports in the New York Times:

Today’s happy adopters of the tech label should note after the dot-com bubble popped early last decade that double-switchers — companies that added and later dropped their dot-com identity — saw their stock prices over one month move 38.5 percent ahead of companies that kept the dot-com name.

It had become pretty clear that Larry and Sergey were bored with the day-to-day of running a multi-billion dollar company employing @52,000 very bright, opinionated people, on top of fending off whiny investors and dealing with increasingly toxic legal complaints, primarily from European sources employing legal tactics to make up for their technological failings.

It is also apparent that Google, to a greater degree than Amazon, Apple or even Facebook, has become the tech target of choice for all manner of regulatory, civil liberties and personal complaints. And that those complaints are only going to increase in scope and intensity. So creating a new structure to deflect and confuse critics is a time-honored tactic.

The more interesting question is why the company chose to sublimate, if not abandon, one of the two most iconic brands in the world (Apple being the other). It has, conceivably, become such a locus of frustration and anger for so many reasons that its value has been degraded. Which says something about the power of that interweb thingy the company helped make so ubiquitous. The web eats its own. JL

Jay Yarow reports in Business Insider:

Page was no longer interested in the nitty-gritty of running a business like Google. He wasn't going to be in meetings talking about increasing the cost-per-click.He wants to see big fat honking changes happen in the world. Where this gets tricky is when you look at earnings. Google is the only company of the bunch that makes any money.

What Happens When Your Celebrity Endorser Wants Her Name Off Your Most Famous Product?

Yeah, Beyonce has a few. And JLo, and Victoria Beckham and Martha Stewart and various Kardashians, of course.

'It' is the Birkin Bag, a large-ish hand-bag that typically goes for a cool $60,000. Per. It is made by Hermes, one of the world's most exclusive luxury brands.

Birkin is Jane Birkin, a once-famous British actress now of une certaine age, who was famous for being French singer-heartthrob Serge Gainsbourg's girlfriend. Before computers, let alone mobiles. Serge mattered once upon a time. But trust us, owning one is code for rich and often famous.

The issue is that Ms. Birkin discovered the reptiles being used to make the bag are being raised in a manner offensive to her. So she asked Hermes to stop marketing it with her name. Hermes has vowed to correct the problem. And hey, the publicity may make the bag even more desirable. But this celebrity and branding thing can be a challenge in the age of social media. JL

Esther Lee reports in Us Weekly:

The iconic piece, typically valued at around $60,000, includes a hefty wait-list and long list of celebrity fans. One rare pink Hermes crocodile skin bag recently sold at a Christie's auction for $223,000. Birkin, the former lover of famous French singer Serge Gainsbourg, inspired the handbag after sitting next to Hermes' late chairman Jean-Louis Dumas on a flight in 1981

The internet has created expectations - and demand for more information. And if you don't give them what they want, someone else - in a blog, an app, a tweet or comment - will. JL

Simon Hayward reports in The Guardian:

Customer expectations of openness and transparency are high. Social media, in particular, enables customers to place their opinions very firmly in the public domain. Websites such as Glassdoor are just one way employees can make their views known about the organisations they work for.

For all the talk about cord cutting and the move to mobile, few people are actually doing so. Not because they are so devoted to cable, but because it is increasingly linked to the internet.

The newer forms of tv watching are adding viewers, but less of the revenue is going to the established networks and cable franchises which are raising fees to make up for lost advertising. JL

Michael Wolff reports in USAToday:

Does the $3 billion that Netflix pays back to the television industry cover TV’s loss of syndication revenues and do television licensors have the clout to make sure Netflix covers that loss?

Our natural instinct in attempting to manage anything is to create order. But it may well be that our efforts are best described as the more efficient redistribution of disorder. Which would certainly explain the frustration on both sides of leadership initiatives.

The good news may be- as the following article suggests - that technology generally and the cloud specifically are harnessing those natural forces in the most productive and effective ways humanity has yet devised. JL

Greg Satell comments in Digital Tonto:

What we see as order is really just nature’s way of spreading disorder more broadly. Most people look at an ordered system as the natural way things should be.We assume that the energy we employ to create order as constructive or “putting things aright,” when actually we are setting the stage for more disorder.