'Thoughts' 카테고리의 글 목록 (2 Page)

'Thoughts'에 해당되는 글 46건

2010.09.29 AOL acquired TechCrunch
2010.09.14 The iPhone Commercial in Korea
2010.02.16 Value of Money

AOL acquired TechCrunch

Thoughts 2010. 9. 29. 18:53

Everyday is a crazy day in the tech news world except when Apple or Google says something - then it's an extra frenzy-crazy day. One interesting news today was TechCrunch being acquired by AOL.

What? AOL? Yes, AOL.

I knew Engadget was a subsidiary of AOL, and AOL did publicly admit their intentions to become a serious content provider, but it's been always difficult to take AOL seriously. Personally, I've never visited the website for almost a decade. I think the last time I visited AOL.com specifically was the last time when I downloaded AOL IM... can't remember exactly when it was, but around the time ICQ was dying and I wanted to try out something new.

Michael Arrington sounds as if he cannot be any more satisfied with the deal (Link). The rumor is that TechCrunch received about $40 million, where $25 million of which was cash (Link). Looks like a sound deal, given that it's not a technology company.

I've always loved TechCrunch, a website now I can't recall how I came to know. It's one of the websites I check daily (at least through RSS feeds). It has been one of the better sources of information in terms of accuracy and time of delivery. I also follow other websites like RWW, VentureBeat, and many more, but they seem to lag on the delivery. Of course, some posts of TechCrunch were rush posts filled with typos and grammatical errors at times, but I don't give a damn on those errors since the content is what matters.

As usual with any M&A transaction, my thought/worry is "would it influence TechCrunch?" Arrington said No - although he said he is not sure about news regarding AOL, but I am still biased and can't really take AOL seriously. So I think I am okay. It doesn't look like AOL would kill TechCrunch or it's trying to combine it with Engadget to create something new.

I also wondered if any recent reports from Arrington/TechCrunch regarding the so-called Angelgate had played any role in the pricing. It certainly demonstrated the influence that TechCrunch has in the world - which gathered so much hype in the US although nobody in South Korea and Asia in general seemed to care.

Another thought that came to my mind was "WTF is Yahoo doing?".

I mean seriously... Shouldn't Yahoo have done something like this long time ago?

Here are some recent moves that I recognize, and I try to venture out where they go although nobody even in the senior management of Yahoo seems to really know:

1) Failed M&A with Microsoft

2) The search deal with Microsoft

3) Meme and the kill of it

4) Removing paid subscription tools in fantasy sports

and 5) some hearsays.

I thought all those indicated that Yahoo was trying to be simply an aggregator and content provider than anything else.

Apparently, I was wrong. I'm no expert, but they are clearly lost in my limited view, and are losing out in their ground to none other than something like AOL. Acquiring TechCrunch following managing Engadget clearly gives AOL a lot of credibility. Sure there are so many websites doing what TechCrunch does, but the Angelgate issue proves its worth/influence and TechCrunch seems like it never had issues with its cast of writers but only with their website engineers.

Financially, I've been ranting that Microsoft is so much like a savings account now that they don't have any eye-popping growth but they are so firm in Windows and Office suite. Yahoo however is a lot worse. Thank God, I don't have them in my portfolio.

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Posted by 【洪】ILHONG

The iPhone Commercial in Korea

Thoughts 2010. 9. 14. 16:07

American TV commercials are very different from the Korean ones.

Korean commercials are very short and a majority of commercials feature some kinda superstar casting.

But I rarely notice a well-known figure doing commercials in the US except for political campaigns or for some NGOs.

I think in Korea, it's rather opposite. Non-profit commercials often feature commercials without stars than with.

But then, even within the US context, Apple always has put up interesting commercials on TV.

Well, I understand that Apple never really had Korea in their business plan (easily reflected by the absence of their physical stores and lack of Korean supports on OS X and iOS) so they never really had a commercial for the Korean market.

This time, however, they released an interesting commercial along with the launch of iPhone4 in Korea.

This is very much like other iPhone4 commercials with only focus on FaceTime.

One interesting thing is that, in Korea, so many phones already feature video-calls that this may be nothing new and nothing evolutionary, which is something that Apple is recognized for.

However, as stubborn as Apple is, they just pursued with the same line of commercials with the same background music with many other FaceTime commercials.

If I may add another note, this iPhone4 commercial features a unique cultural aspect that was also somehow featured in some of the Japanese iPhone 4 commercials.

What I want to pay attention to is whether the impact of iPhone4 would influence the TV commercial market in Korea as well - bring up the competition with interesting ideas rather than relying on super stars. Because without a doubt, it will certainly would lead the telecommunication/handset market in Korea.

Korean iPhone4 Commercial:

Japanese iPhone4 Commercial - Kimono:

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Posted by 【洪】ILHONG

Value of Money

Thoughts 2010. 2. 16. 14:15

I think money should be spent on things where it can generate the most return.
This is one of the most basic economic theories.

I firmly believe that this should be the case in the instances of charity.

Well, if we disregard the idea of utility curve (or the idea of individual definition of "happiness"),
charity generates the most value of money - especially charity that are directed to emergencies and where USD exchange rate incurs the most value (e.g. Sub-Saharan African states). Charity spent on such regions can bring life to those who were imminent to death - literally. How can you compare a life with monetary return on a stock investment?

For this reason, I firmly believe now that it is rather wrong to argue with logic that charity for a certain group of unfortunate is better than other uses. For example, I often see Koreans arguing that Koreans should spend money for unfortunate Koreans rather than unfortunate non-Koreans. This is just an example although this is something a true story. There are Americans arguing the same thing for charity directed to Americans. If you believe such is true, then donate your portion of income to charity of your belief, but don't try to argue that others are wrong not to do the same.

I know any value of money spent for charity is valuable, but once you start such dumb arguments you are bound to lose logically, because $1 can do so much more in, say, Zimbabwe than in America.

However, the idea of utility curve changes all that.
Although I try to keep all my decisions logical, I am also very much affected by my own utility curves, or region, actually. But I should note that even with idea of utility curve, you cannot make such argument because one's utility curve is very unique and it's only infinitesimally possible that there exists another with exactly the same utility curve.

But I am never going to forget what charity can do for those in need in general.
Once my life is set, charity will always be one of the most important parts of my life.