The answer to the first question depends on the number of employees in the company.  If it's a smaller company, say only about 100 people or so, then no, it wouldn't be a good idea to allow trading in prediction markets inside the company.  The reason for this is that there would be too many people 'in the know' and the level of speculation about a particular item would be very low, thus the market wouldn't be much of a market at all (at the very least it'd be really one-sided). 

Allowing insiders or highly uninformed people to use the markets really depends on how many of the above you have and also the size of the company, as mentioned above.  If you have a small company, and insiders make up the majority of the market, then the variability of prediction markets really doesn't show through.  If the company is quite large (even medium sized), then the insiders or uninformed traders really shouldn't have a huge impact on the functioning of the market.  

The truth is, they can't.  There are so many editors out there that it seems that every article is suspect to being correct.  According to the case, there is a lot of back discussion on numerous articles.  It sometimes seems that the back talk is more pervasive in its content for some articles than the meat of the article itself! 

I had a very frustrating experience with editing wikipedia which led me to pretty much avoid trying to correct articles altogether.  Case in point: In the video for Nickelback's 'Rockstar', Elliot, of DC 101 fame, has a small part.  He even said so during his show soon after the video was released to answer numerous queries about whether that was him or not.  Finding that someone else was listed during his scene, I went ahead and made the correction.  Two days later, my correction had been uncorrected, with no explanation whatsoever.  I made another edit and this time added something to the Talk part of the article explaining why I had made the edit.  Sure enough, next time I check the article, my edit is gone and furthermore, in the Talk section, a 'cousin of a fan of the nephew of the lead guitarist'  for Nickelback proceeded to call me a name that I can't republish here.  So much for professionalism. 

I have not done any editing on Wikipedia since then, but just from reading the Wikipedia (A) case, it would seem that Wikipedia needs to put their proverbial foot down and do a much better job of enforcing how articles are created/edited/discussed/deleted.   As the initial co-founder of Wikipedia mentions in the case, experts are seemingly looked down on and blasted for having the audacity to be right and actually having knowledge of the subject/article they are contributing to.   The case had a tone that seemed to say that due to Wikipedia being as open as it is, the tradeoff for that openness is accuracy.  It also would seem that there is more politics than professionalism within the wikicommunity. 

{This entry has been flagged for deletion by imsmarterthanyoubutyoucantproveit and will be deleted by April 30th unless someone can find user imsmarterthanyoubutcantproveit and smack him resoundly}

Interesting video based on our class discussion regarding social media last night.  This shows how some businesses are using social media for more than operational/selling needs; they're also scouring it for HR purposes as well:

Social Networking Your Way To A Job

In implementing internal blogs, companies might be able to improve productivity by improving communications between different departments,especially if these departments tend to work closely together on a regular basis.  This can lead to increased (possible) productivity and better results overall.  The downside of having an internal employee blog is that it could possibly lead to less productivity.  Employees may use the blog to vent/rant against the company or use it for non-work related entries.  It would be similar to playing around on, say, Facebook for the day, blogging about things that are of no relation whatsoever to the company.

External blogs are a great way to subtly market the company.  In fact, several companies now scour the blogosphere to find out if and what anybody's saying about their company.  If it's positive then it amounts to free advertising/marketing!  External employee blogs might also aid in recruitment of potential prospects.  These folks might read employee blogs and think, "hey, that sounds like a pretty cool place to work.  Maybe I should apply".   On the flip side of this coin, external employee blogs may backfire if the company doesn't keep a close eye on what's being said about the company.  Not to say that companies should become the Gestapo and strictly regulate every little aspect of employee blogs.  Companies should have some sort of corporate guidelines or standards as to what can and should be said on external blogs and what really should never appear.  External employee blogs can become a magnet for those who frequently rail against the company, and possibly turn into a bane for the company chock full of bad publicity instead of the positive experience the company would like external blogs to be.

I think so.  Apple was the first mover in this market, and captured it by a player that looked good and was the first of its' kind.  Apple was also first mover when it came to the music marketplace, i.e. iTunes.  It seems that since the iPod has hit, everybody has been trying to play catchup.  Microsoft has launched it's player, Zune, which is only compatible with their own music store, and the major subscription services, Napster and Rhapsody, won't work with an iPod or a Zune.  I think first mover advantage plus the massive Apple marketing juggernaut + Apple's reputation for being the cool kid on the block have helped the iPod/iTunes become a very close winner-take-all platform.

The strengths of this business model is that it takes a two-fold approach, both from the customer and producer end.  Producers can upload whatever they like and can choose control vs. advertising choice, and consumers can access multiple streams, many along the 'long-tail', and only have to pay the price of watching a 15-second ad. 

The weakness is that they may have acted too late.  Media giants such as MTV/Viacom were already racing to get their own proprietary model into the market, and they were most likely just the tip of the iceberg.  Larger companies may find it to be more cost-effective (as well as content control effective) to create their own in-house video site.

Since the writing of the Electronic Arts Case the Sony Playstation 3 and the Nintendo Wii have been released and both have online gaming capabilities.  What’s your assessment of the current online gaming market?


The current online gaming market essentially has three major players:  Microsoft, Sony, and the PC market.  Wii is not seen so much as an online gaming console but more of a standalone/party/casual console.  Of the online players, Microsoft and the PC market are the clear leaders, IMO.  The PC market has the runaway MMORPG World of Warcraft as well as virtual world Second Life which as also taken the online experience to a whole new level above and beyond just gaming.  Microsoft has tweaked their XBox Live service to allow players to not just play with friends inside of a particular game, say Halo 3, but play social-specific games using avatars that eerily resemble Wii's Mii avatars. 

In terms of what I see from my perspective as a consumer, it seems that people have made up their minds about specific consoles using the online experience as only one factor.  PS3 is chosen for its' included Blu-Ray player as well as it's horsepower under the hood (aka the Cell processor).  Xbox 360 is chosen more for it's online capabilities (in Xbox Live), and the Wii is chosen to suit the more casual gamer.  I have noticed that ever since the battle between Sony and Microsoft gained notoriety, game companies are releasing more and more platform-agnostic games to both console.  Each side is still trying to outdo the other by coming up with big blockbusters that are platform-specific, such as Halo 3 for Xbox and Killzone 2 and Resistance 2 for PS3.

Netflix has indeed branched out into the VOD segment of video entertainment.  The way that they have done so is via the second option mentioned towards the end of the case, that is, integrating streaming VOD into their core offering.  They offer it for free alongside their regular DVD subscription service, meaning that a member can choose to either have a movie in their queue delivered via DVD or streamed out to them.  One caveat is that newer releases (such as movies that have just been released to DVD or have been on DVD for less than about nine months) are not available for on-demand viewing.

Netflix has removed the concern about video quality between a users PC and their TV by removing the PC from the equation entirely.  A member now can have a movie streamed directly to their TV but through an intermediary of sorts.  This intermediary is a Netflix-capable device that receives the video stream from Netflix over the internet, then processes the signal and transmits it to a connected TV.  Some examples of these devices are Tivo recorders, XBox 360 gaming consoles, and internet-connected Blu-Ray DVD players.  I imagine that there is some sort of revenue-sharing or fee-based model behind this setup, so that both the device manufacturer and Netflix make some money off of this.

Netflix apparently has managed to offset the cost of acquiring online video (such as rights from the studio) by partnering with such prominent firms as Microsoft (in the case of the Xbox 360) and Tivo.  In exchange for the firms making their devices Netflix capable, Netflix has added limited blurbs describing the devices, (sort of free advertising, if you will) as well as direct links to the manufacturers' website so a member can potentially purchase one of these devices.

As a personal aside, I own a 360, and I have tried Netflix VOD via the 360.  It needs work, not in the available offerings, but in other aspects.  The picture quality is absolutely horrible, which is surprising considering I have my 360 hooked up to an HD TV via an HDMI connection (translation: the 360 can output HD content and my TV can handle it).  I like the idea of the instant gratification of not having to wait for a movie to show up in the mail, but until Netflix or Microsoft - whoever's to blame here I'm not certain - fixes the clarity issue, I'll be sticking to having to trudge to my mailbox to get my next movie rather than just hitting a few controller buttons.

EDIT: One of the more salient points of this case was the fact that Netflix' recommendation system boosted its' subscription rates drastically.  In taking a look at the sites I visit, most, if not all, sites that have some sort of sales, whether direct or indirect, have a recommendation feature.  One example is boardgamegeek.com.   They have links to online game stores, but also have a recommendation system for individual game articles. 

1. How should ezboard update their business model to reach their revenue goals?

2. What services should they consider offering with the new Version 8.0 software?

They should go with the recommendations that their user survey suggested.  For example, adding a friends list function, so that users can see what boards and what discussions their friends are participating in.  Photo sharing albums would be a good addition as well.  Multi-media sharing, as many social networking sites engage in, would complement the photo sharing.