Tag Archives: new business models

If phone calls are a thing of the past, now what?

Naomi Weiser | August 7, 2010
BLOGGER: JEFF BARAK The irony behind the tremendous growth of smartphones is, of course, the fact that people are making fewer telephone calls.  In an enlightening blog in Wired, Clive Thompson makes the argument that the phone call is dead, pointing out that the younger generation “doesn’t make phone calls, because everyone is in constant, lightweight contact in so many other ways: texting, chatting, and social-network messaging.” Anecdotal evidence – and most people’s personal experience — would seem to prove Thomson’s point that a person-to-person telephone call is no longer the preferred means of communication. In the office, if I ... More >>

Kindling growth in the connected world

Naomi Weiser | January 19, 2010
By Jeff Barak There’s no doubt that the Kindle was one of the successes of 2009, even if the extremely secretive Amazon steadfastly refuses to say exactly how many have been sold, preferring instead to restrict itself to describing the Kindle as the online retailer’s best-selling product. But while Amazon throws a heavy cloak over its numbers, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is happy to discuss his company’s philosophy, explaining to Newsweek how Amazon evolved from being just a retailer to a company that’s also selling computing services, and is now in the consumer-electronics business with the Kindle. The Amazon CEO ... More >>