Tech’s Complicated Race to Space

Jul 26, 2021 –

For at least an hour or so last week, cable news channels were bearable to watch. Instead of pushing political agendas and playing in COVID fear mongering, attention was given to Jeff Bezos flying into “space” on board his Blue Origin rocket. Some U.S. news networks even sent anchors to Texas to cover the event. The ordeal offered a brief sense of levity to what has become a downright toxic news environment.

We Have a Growing Social Media Problem on Our Hands

Jul 19, 2021 –

Ongoing issues related to the pandemic involving variants and vaccination rates are now leading to what seems like some kind of turning point for today’s digital town squares (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc.)

Last week, the White House lit a firestorm of reaction when it disclosed that it was “working” with Facebook on flagging misinformation on its platform related to COVID vaccines. This came after President Biden went after Facebook and peers saying…

The Decentralization of Silicon Valley

Jul 12, 2021 –

Two months ago, “A Work from Home Head Fake” went over my position that most companies are not built to succeed with work-from-home structures. Team communication and idea exchange have not evolved enough for work from home to replace traditional office settings without negative consequences.

Since that Inside Orchard essay was published, work from home has turned into a polarizing topic online. Tribalism has now entered the discussion as some…

The Problem with Regulating Software in the 2020s

Jun 28, 2021 –

As the anti-tech bills from the U.S. house antitrust subcommittee made their way through the judiciary committee last week, the tone in press coverage and tech circles continued to evolve. An increasing number of people have become convinced that Washington is going to come down hard on the “tech” giants. This feeling has manifested itself in different ways. Those who view the giants as too powerful are jumping in jubilation while others…

Streaming Video’s Ongoing Revolution

Jun 21, 2021 –

There continues to be something that I call the “iPhone mentality” in tech. A singular product or service is positioned as quickly transforming a market or industry. A byproduct of this thinking is the tendency for consensus to prematurely declare that first movers are winners.

Netflix was declared the winner in paid video streaming back in 2018.
Spotify was declared the winner in music streaming in 2015.
Tesla was declared the winner…

The Smart Home Remains the Wild West

Jun 14, 2021 –

The smart home is still more of a concept than anything else. Those expecting one product or service to transform homes into smart homes have been left disappointed. The same goes for those who prematurely crowned a winner in the smart home race. The smart home remains the Wild West and is turning into a long-term play for the tech giants with strategy goals measured in multi-year increments.

The battle being waged…

Snap’s Quest to Control Cameras in an AR World

Jun 07, 2021 –

Snap continues to be an interesting company. Thanks to spending years in Facebook’s shadow, the social media company has a credible claim to being perennially underestimated. Snap’s $96 billion market cap is just one-tenth of Facebook’s ($946 billion).

Snap is all about rethinking the way we use mobile cameras. Smartphones turned cameras, once used for memory capture, into communication tools. This shift helps explain Snap’s “we are a camera company” mantra. Although…

A Work from Home Head Fake

May 24, 2021 –

The tech industry sees its fair share of head fakes – items and trends that consensus thinks will be the next big thing but which fail to meet lofty expectations. 3D TVs, consumer drones, and voice computing are three such head fakes. The pandemic has introduced a few new head fakes in tech – the biggest one being work from home.

Companies have been carefully walking a thin line when it comes…

The Future of Digital Tracking

May 17, 2021 –

A retailer (Amazon), social media company (Facebook), and information services company (Google) now capture more than half of all advertising spending in the U.S. The Inside Orchard essay “The Advertising Triopoly” focused on how the three were able to reach such a milestone: establish formidable ecosystems powered by not only software, but also customer data.

Today’s advertising empires are built on tracking our behavior and activity online. The degree of…

Elon Musk and a New Era of Tech Celebrity

May 10, 2021 –

Elon Musk continued his streak of being unlike any other CEO by guest hosting Saturday Night Live this past weekend. For those who have followed Musk over the years, including his Twitter activity, the show went pretty much as one would expect.

The acting skits, most of which were connected to one of Musk’s various interests, played off of his personality. Not surprisingly, Musk’s appearance was the story of the weekend, occupying…

The Pandemic Isn’t Fueling Tech

May 03, 2021 –

With the 1Q21 earnings season coming to a close, we have a good view of how the world’s largest companies performed during the first three months of 2021. Impressive would be the word. Consider the following year-over-year revenue growth figures:

Apple: 53%
Facebook: 48%
Amazon: 44%
Alphabet: 34%
Microsoft: 19%

There are the usual caveats associated with revenue recognition. In addition, each of the preceding companies have unique margin and capex profiles…

The Real Estate Boom Is Leaving Tech Behind

Apr 26, 2021 –

Last week’s essay was focused on the rise of new financial bubbles. This week’s essay is about an asset that is showing signs of being an anti-bubble: residential real estate.

The U.S. real estate market is displaying some of the strongest fundamentals in nearly two decades in terms of supporting price appreciation. Instead of crazy and unfounded speculation driving home prices higher, a severe supply and demand imbalance is strongly favoring sellers…

New Age Financial Bubbles Are Forming

Apr 19, 2021 –

Last week, there were a number of events that caught my attention.

Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency which contains no value and is literally based on a meme, saw its price rise by 400%.
Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange platform, had its initial public offering and at one point during its first day of trading reached a $100 billion valuation. The company, which most people never heard of prior to last week, reached a market…

The Advertising Triopoly

Apr 12, 2021 –

The press has come to rely on a very wide net when describing “tech” companies. Some of this is to be expected as tech continues to invade new industries. However, there is something wrong found with using “tech” to describe any company making money one way or another from software and data. My stance on “tech” is that it has lost much of its descriptive meaning when it comes to business models…

The Rise of Digital Town Squares

Apr 05, 2021 –

Humans are social creatures. We don’t want to avoid social interaction. There is a gravitation that pulls us together. One characteristic that has been part of the exchange of ideas in the physical world is a social construct to push fringe ideas and opinions to the edges – out of town squares and into back alleys.

Social media has redefined the way we come together to share and exchange ideas. Companies ranging…

NFTs, Tulips, and Misplaced Artist Hope

Mar 29, 2021 –

NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are the digital equivalent of signed art. Instead of using fiat money to pay for physical art, cryptocurrency is used to pay for NFTs. While there are more technical and expansive definitions for NFTs involving digital ledgers, complexity ends up adding unnecessary noise to the discussion.

In recent weeks, NFTs have had their moment. Auctions involving NFTs for digital art have reached shocking totals with one NFT going for…

Clubhouse and Niche Audio

Mar 22, 2021 –

Everything is going Clubhouse’s way, or so it would seem.

The social media start-up playing in the audio space is apparently doing everything right. The combination of an invite-only system, which is one of the more effective ways to create buzz, and a big embrace from celebrities including everyone from Elon Musk and Drake to Bill Gates and Oprah, completes the unicorn status of the latest tech darling.

Despite glowing articles and…

Carving Up Retail

Mar 15, 2021 –

Kmart was at one time the second-largest retailer in the U.S. After two bankruptcies, one as a Sears subsidiary, and a growing number of store closures, the big box department store finds itself on a gradual slide into liquidation.

After 43 years in the same location, a local Kmart closed its doors at the end of 2019. The 45,000-sq foot store – far too small of a store footprint for Walmart or…

Robinhood’s Misdirection

Mar 08, 2021 –

Every few years, an event occurs that captures society’s mindset for a week or two. This past January, we saw the latest example of this with what is being called the GameStop frenzy. A group of unknown composition used the web to coordinate trades, targeting buying pressure towards a few heavily shorted companies. The goal was to increase share prices and in the process, squeeze hedge funds that were short the stock…

Music’s Trouble

Mar 01, 2021 –

The number of people paying good money for music continues to rise. In the U.S. alone, 75 million people are paying on average $90 a year to listen to music through a streaming service. On its own that’s a great thing, and music rights holders are riding decades-long emotional (and financial) highs. However, we are seeing what amounts to music’s destruction continue to unfold before our eyes.

How much is a song…

Online Product Reviews Are Broken