Do recommendation systems make the ‘tail’ longer or shorter?

(Updated March 2015) Earlier this month, Netflix (an American provider of on-demand Internet streaming media) offered some details about …

The smartphone patent wars and competition policy

Last Wednesday (April 18, 2012), Lucy Koh, a US District Court Judge, may have paved the way towards a …

Building on Batibouw to understand two-sided platforms

In many economic and social situations, two groups of agents may interact through one or several intermediaries and prefer …

A tale of Sheiks and cheques

The Bulletin is a magazine for expatriates moving to or living in Belgium. In its issue of July 10, …

Network effects and expectations: the Million Dollar Homepage story

(Updated 25/02/2013) Network effects are ubiquitous in the digital economy. They refer to the idea that users prefer to be …

Network effects

Network effects are ubiquitous in the digital economy. They refer to the idea that, for many reasons, users prefer …

Online banking, switching costs and competition: a complex story

(Updated February 7, 2013) In an article published in October 2012  in the New York Times, Nelson D. Schwartz …

IP Management

    In their book ‘Information Rules‘ (1999), Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian write the following: “The important thing …

What to think of ‘patent trolls’? The return

In a previous post last year, I was presenting different views on so-called patent trolls, which are sometimes defined as …

LEGO: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?

Regarding intellectual property management, LEGO may seem to suffer from some form of personality disorder. Over the years, the company …