Samsung’s new retail store looks familiar

July 13, 2012

Samsung’s new retail store looks familiar ∞

I just can’t put my finger on it.

Apple doubles its nearest Android competitor in market share

If you look at the chart below from Nielsen, you’ll see that Android has 51.8 percent of the smartphone market share and Apple has 34.3 percent.

Look at it again. Not a single Android-based smartphone even comes close to Apple’s market share. In fact, Apple doubles its nearest competitor, Samsung, which has 17 percent market share. Also consider that each of those manufacturers have a variety of smartphones available on the market at the same time. Apple has a couple of iPhones.

July 12, 2012

Betaworks buys Digg for $500K ∞

Written by Peter Cohen

Joseph Walker and Spencer E. Ante for the Wall Street Journal:

New York technology development firm Betaworks has agreed to buy news-sharing website Digg, in an attempt to revive a company that was early to social media but outmaneuvered by rivals like Facebook Inc. FB -0.52% and Twitter Inc.
Under the deal, which Digg confirmed closed Thursday, Betaworks is buying the Digg brand, website and technology. The price was just $500,000, three people familiar with the matter said—a pittance for a company that raised $45 million from prominent investors including LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Marc Andreessen.

Digg is a social news site that got its start in 2004 as a way for users to put together collections of news and information that interested them, with a voting system to determine the popularity of information. It’s been overshadowed by other social networks like Reddit.

Digg had already been carved up by the time Betaworks put its bid in – Social Code hired half the company’s staff in May. Sources told the Journal that other companies offered a higher price for Digg’s assets, but Betaworks offered the best plan to actually resuscitate the brand.

Iranians claim unfair treatment by Apple retail employees ∞

Written by Peter Cohen

Jamai Abdi for the New York Times:

Apple has not been taken over by xenophobes. The discrimination is one result of trying to enforce flawed and haphazard United States export controls against countries, like Iran, that are under sanctions. Retail employees are left to interpret and implement federal policy, and racial profiling results.

I think Abdi’s conclusion here is reasonable. I live by a precept known in some circles as Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity,” and that’s exactly what this sounds like to me. Replace “stupidity” with “ignorance” if you want to soften the message a bit.

Abdi goes on to explain that this has happened, at least in part, because of “flawed and haphazard United States export controls.” What’s bizarre to me is that these retail store employees would take it upon themselves to try to enforce such regulations, which are clearly beyond their judgment or control. I’m unclear on whether this is just overzealous enforcement on their part, racial profiling or what. What I’m certain it’s not is any sort of corporate policy, spoken or unspoken, that says “if a tanned person speaking what sounds like Farsi comes in, don’t sell them anything.”

Abdi goes on to pontificate that Apple must “enact policies to prevent discrimination,” and this is where he goes off the rails. Apple already does a huge amount to prevent discrimination, and has a much better track record than most other companies its size, I would venture to guess.

I don’t think Apple deserves to be singled out for special scrutiny, or should be held to some higher standard than it already is, notwithstanding the misguided attempts of a a few of its retail store employees to protect national security, or whatever-the-heck they had it in their heads that they were trying to do.