Quickthink

ERR reports on the recent debate between the three candidates and the decision to be announced today which will take over the job of leading the university. Very entertaining and I think an interesting contest.

Two trends are worth watching. The first is the extent to which Tartu can become a stronger regional player (rather than just a state university). This is an old, old story. It can and should, but needs a stronger push from the administration to overcome resistance from certain faculties. The second is the extent to which Tartu can embrace a more outwardly looking research profile. The old idea that a “classical university” can ignore its surroundings is quaint but needs to be thrown overboard.

I await the decision.

I hear that my old friend Volli Kalm has won. Good luck Rector Kalm!

I had a rather animated chat with an Irish colleague the other day about their referendum over the new EU austerity pact. Irish voters may accept the pact (and they go to the polls today), but I suspect that this is a side show.

The real event is happening in Spain right now, where bond spreads are getting rather out of control. This scare is producing a sea change in public opinion which is likely to produce a new “conventional wisdom” this year. The old idea is that austerity is a necessary virtue. And what is the new normal? Austerity in the face of a recession is stupid, unless of course you are German and benefiting from an artificially low valuation of your products due to the Euro.

The deeper issue here is a challenge to German leadership of Europe. Unless the Germans come around to the new idea, sad to say, me thinks we will see a very deep split in the European polity.

This statistic from Living Streams caught my eye this morning

… smartphone sales will rise by 57.7 per cent globally to hit 468 million units by the end of the year.

Great for makes of smartphones and smartphone platforms and app makers. And apparently a new opportunity for marketers who want to reach out to you via your phone. They probably won’t do this by search. More likely it will be via apps.

One interesting wrinkle - neither Facebook nor Google have great mobile strategies and both are rather frantically trying to get mobile. The latest from Google is to use high grade rating services (like Zagat) to build local and global market penetration. The Kernel offers a nice overview of the trend towards mobile ecommerce. This quote caught my eye

Imagine a scenario where a customer in a retail outlet is testing out a product and is almost ready to buy it. First, however, the customer scans the bar code with their mobile device for a price comparison to online shops. Meanwhile, e-commerce sites can tap into the GPS module of the device to find the customer’s location and deliver them an offer that is more competitive than the one in the shop. This gives e-commerce sites a competitive advantage over retail shops by dynamically adjusting its prices based on location.

A while ago, I listened to Roger McNamee who said that Forbes Magazine would be a model for business journalism in the digital age. Well, after that I didn’t hear much more … until today. Today I see that Mathew Ingram at Giga offers analysis of why Forbes is doing so well. So why?

1. Opening up as much as possible (expanding the number of persons who give content to the platform)
2. Getting content creators to connect with content users (making tools for this to occur more regularly and meaningfully)

I like these ideas because they are logical applications of a new sort of relationship between content creators and content users. The relationship is changing because (1) the interaction occurs faster. In the old days, a content creator could take advantage of relatively slow interchanges. The pace is picking up which means writing to encourage interchange is becoming more valuable. Content is more like conversation than it used to be, and (2) the interaction is more personal. In the old days, one could write from the omniscient narrator point of view.  These days, that works less. Content users want to understand the context of information as much as the substance of the message. Footnotes and references are replaced by links. And links are being aggregated so that one can trace sources and next ideas faster.

In sum, we are moving away from something I would call “zombie text”. Just stuff that sits there pretending to be a conversation but really just blah blah blah. We are moving towards “catterwauling text”. This is text that competes for your attention. This move implies a new writing standards — can you write in a way that encourages interaction? Can you write in a way that builds context? Good questions, I think.

Here is an example of this new style - from Mashable, writing about the new social networking strategy of the LA Kings, a professional hockey team in the NHL.

The SpaceX historic visit to the ISS is nearly over and its dragon capsule will return to earth on Thursday. Wired has the story with some very cool pics.

BI offers some tips on what foods can help improve your productivity. They include

• berries
• walnuts or avocados
•  eggs
• salmon
• eggplant
• caffeine in coffee
• dark chocolate
• green tea
• yogurt
• dark green veggies
• red wine
• whole grains
• hot cocoa
• garlic

I am doing pretty well according to the list. Though my hot cocoa consumption is a bit low.

Michael Sigman writing for HuffPo, asks when did the sixties end? Better yet, he also embeds a few good tunes in the post - I had not heard Carole King belt out “It’s too late baby” for many a year. Nice.

But are the sixties really over? In one way it is  not. The sixties was a decade of excess. Whether it was hair, bell bottom jeans, getting stoned, everything seemed to go to the red line. And according to Gail Collins we are still at it.

On offers an interesting peek at how Skype’s market is changing — and it is changing very quickly.

I just saw this from Bits of Freedom via Hacker News.

Matt Ingram has an interesting article about Warren Buffet’s recent investment in local news businesses. Actually, Matt is echoing comments made by Clay Shirky.  The underlying message about changes in the market for readers’ attention is important for anyone interested in web platform businesses.