Tech Assessments
Spring 2007

1  Wednesday, March 14

A. HDDVD/BlueRay standards war.

Examine the HDDVD/BlueRay DVD standard war, and offer some forecasts about the eventual resolution. [Slides] [Paper]

B. Social media business models.

Will social media (based on social networking sites such as Facebook, My Space) turn into real economic opportunities? If so, how? What business models might emerge? How can social networking be used for other sorts of content? (E.g., YouTube.) [Slides] [Paper]

C. User created content business models.

What are possible business models using user created content (UCC) such as blogs and podcasts? Is it just hype are are their sustainable ways to make money from it? [Slides] [Paper]

2  Monday, March 19

E. Business models for co-creation.

What business models or participation models could companies employ to motivate users to contribute to their products or business in a manner similar to co-creation (as with Wikipedia, Google/Yahoo Answers)? What product categories are good candidates for co-creation? Why? What common characteristics do they share? What are different ways of offering contributors of co-created items remuneration (e.g., paying royalties for the open text book project based on number of words published)? How do prevent people from gaming the system? [Slides] [Paper]

F. Future labor markets

How will businesses source talent in 10 years? What are likely to be the are likely to be the work models of the future (e.g. full employment, TopCoder-like employment, project-based loose affiliations with multiple entities, contracting)? [Slides] [Paper]

G. Industrial transformation and IT

In what ways will information and communication technology transform retailing? Examine the impact of specific technologies such as RFID, Internet, personalized advertising, etc. [Slides] [Paper]

3  Wednesday, March 21

D. Product placement

What technological developments allow for more robust product placement in video/audio content? How will this affect advertising models? Does product placement work, or will we just get more ad-blindness? [Slides] [Paper]

H. iPhone strategy.

What is the strategy behind Apple's iPhone? Will it fair better than the ill-fated ROKR? Investigate how these forces (lock-in, network effects, co-optition with carriers etc) are likely to change in light of consumer / market trends (VOIP, WiFi etc). Assess the underlying technology, the future of the iPhone and make some strategy recommendations. [Slides] [Paper]