The internet industry scored a tactical victory this week with Wednesday’s blackout of sites such as Wikipedia and Reddit, and the White House’s decision to oppose parts of two bills intended to curb the file-sharing of films and copyrighted material. “Piracy rules,” tweeted Rupert Murdoch angrily.
Those asking themselves if they can trust Britain’s tabloid newspapers any more won’t have been reassured this week by Piers Morgan, the CNN chat show host, who appeared before an official inquiry into the News of the World phone hacking scandal to cast doubt on both his memory and his memoirs.
FT column: Don’t make Amazon a monopoly
Whoever thought up Amazon’s latest idea for squeezing other retailers – offering money off to people who scanned prices in US stores with its smartphone app and then bought the goods on Amazon – deserves an award for bad timing.
Why Amazon kept the Fire to itself
The difficulties of Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet reminds me of how peculiar it was to hold a launch event at which no-one was allowed to try the device. With hindsight, I and others there should have taken that as a warning.
At the launch in New York in September, Amazon executives showed off the Fire and other Kindle models while journalists and others were kept at a safe distance. Outsiders were not given a chance to see how the devices performed for themselves.
The goings-on at Olympus were baffling three weeks ago. Michael Woodford, the Japanese company’s British president, was fired and then disclosed details of some very odd deals. Something was badly awry but it was hard to fathom why Olympus had wasted $1.4bn on three tiny acquisitions and a ludicrously inflated advisory fee.
By Ben Fenton
In an extended Vanity Fair piece that people who know the Murdoch family say is “horrifying in its level of detail” and “strikingly accurate in most respects”, Sarah Ellison has laid out how the phone hacking scandal at one of News Corp’s UK newspapers derailed dynastic plans for the media group.
One element of a long history – the claim that the four eldest Murdoch siblings had discussed the “succession” to their father as chairman and CEO with a “family counsellor” or psychologist – stood out, both for being hard to picture and for what it says about how little other shareholders views appear to enter into the Murdoch family considerations on succession planning. (Rupert Murdoch and the elder four of his six children control 38 per cent of voting shares, but own only 12 per cent of the total equity).
Qwikster joins New Coke in the dustbin of history
It is a chastened Reed Hastings who has just decided to ditch his disastrous plan to split Netflix into two businesses – Netflix and “Qwikster” – and stick with what his customers liked in the first place.
Mr Hastings is right to back down – if nothing else, his bold experiment with “disruptive innovation” has mainly disrupted his own company. Its shares have not recovered since he raised prices and announced his plan to turn his DVD rental business into Qwikster while keeping the Netflix name for video streaming.
Unlike the long semi-apology he made last month when announcing the Qwikster gambit, which included a business school-style explanation of why he was separating the rapidly growing star from the cash cow, his missive today is short and to the point:
“It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.
This means no change: one website, one account, one password … in other words, no Qwikster.”
That makes more sense than his assertion last month that:
“Another advantage of separate websites is simplicity for our members. Each website will be focused on just one thing (DVDs or streaming) and will be even easier to use.”
Wisden India proves cricket knows no boundaries
Soon to be available in light blue
The shift of economic power eastwards from crisis-hit developed nations has another milestone: the publisher of Wisden – the annual “bible” of English cricket enthusiasts – is licensing production of an edition tailor-made for the Indian market.
A bit like Hermès, with its recent launch of a range of saris in India, Bloomsbury Publishing and its partner want to recast a western brand for enthusiastic Indian consumers.
The deal – with FidelisWorld FZ, a sports and entertainment management group – comes wrapped in the sort of biz-speak that would make John Wisden, the cricketer who founded the almanack in 1864, shudder. FidelisWorld, says the press statement, “aims to unify the fragmented sectors [of the Indian market for cricket information] into a consolidated whole… thereby achieving synergies and building value”.
| About this blog | Blog guide |
John Gapper is an associate editor and the chief business commentator of the FT.
He has worked for the FT since 1987, covering labour relations, banking and the media. He is co-author, with Nicholas Denton, of All That Glitters, an account of the collapse of Barings in 1995.
Andrew Hill is an associate editor and the management editor of the FT. He is a former City editor, financial editor, comment and analysis editor, New York bureau chief, foreign news editor and correspondent in Brussels and Milan.
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johngapper: @MatthewGwyther feels that way
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andrewtghill: Why the fixation with quotas is distracting boards and how to combat gender fatigue. My FT column: http://t.co/9aXD9luV
andrewtghill: Why the fixation with quotas is a distraction - and how to combat gender fatigue. My FT column: http://t.co/9drtieq2
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