Category: Web/Tech

A note on the econoblog market

by  Craig Newmark in

Tyler and Alex want to “dominate the market in econ blogs.”

When an industrial organization economist reads such a statement–O.K., maybe not all industrial organization economists, but at least this one–he asks: “How do you define the market?” I first thought, “Economists who blog regularly about a wide range of topics from an economic perspective.” On second thought, that definition has problems. (Market definitions usually do.) Should econoblogs be restricted to just “economists”? What’s a “blog,” anyway? How often is “regularly”? Should the definition include blogs that specialize in just one area of economics, such as taxes, international economics, neuroeconomics, oligopolies? What about some of the fine public policy blogs?

On third thought, since the antitrust authorities aren’t suing Alex and Tyler yet–but Institutional Economics cracks, “It is just as well Marginal Revolution are only intellectual entrepreneurs. Commercial entrepreneurs would be setting themselves up for anti-trust action were they to put in writing their intention to dominate a market”–there’s no need to overthink this. At least not unless readers express interest, and offer to help, and someone provides major, major financial support. I’ll just note 20 other blogs–one is actually a list of links to blog posts, a list that changes weekly– that I think would probably belong in the market and that I think are worth a look.

The first four are already listed in Tyler and Alex’s links and are probably the dominant oligopolists in the market. I especially recommend EconLog, by Arnold Kling. It is consistently interesting, thoughtful, and free of cant.

EconLog
The Knowledge Problem
Dynamist Blog
Brad DeLong

Sixteen more:

A Random Walk
Agoraphilia
Asymmetrical Information
Atlantic Blog
Ben Muse
Carnival of the Capitalists
Cold Spring Shops
Deinonychus antirrhopus
EconoPundit
Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey
Law and Economics Blog
The Angry Economist
The Idea Shop
The Proximal Tubule
The Sports Economist
Truck and Barter

Craig Newmark to guest blog!

by  Alex Tabarrok in

We are delighted that Craig Newmark of Newmark’s Door will be guest blogging with us this week. Tyler and I read Craig’s blog every day for the links that no one else finds. In his regular job, Craig teaches economics at North Carolina State University. Craig’s wife Betsy is also a well known blogger at Betsy’s Page which makes me wonder if they argue over the DSL line the way other couples argue over the TV remote?

Thanks also to our colleague Russ Roberts for blogging with us last week.

Gmail?

by  Craig Newmark in

Google will be launching a new no-charge (“free” as the rest of the world likes to call it) email service, Gmail, with one gigabyte of storage, 100 times the amount offered by rivals Yahoo and Hotmail. The catch? There will be small ads included. One gigabyte? Think of how many offers for mispelled intimate products or urgent assistance for foreign oil ministers that will hold. There is one other catch. The news was announced yesterday, March 31st with an April 1 date on the news release. Many are suggesting that it’s merely a hoax. At MarginalRevolution, we only report. You decide. Here’s the Google page announcing the beta version. Looks pretty convincing, but it would, wouldn’t it?

Are video games art?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Some time ago I asked whether video and computer games would provide the next artistic explosion. I concluded: “I’m still waiting to see the payoff.”

The New York Times ($) has nominated one such game, www.worldofawe.net as an aesthetically worthy experience, click on the link if you are curious. The game combines elements of music, travelogue, diaries, narrative, and digitally constructed artwork. One of the artworks has been included in the recent Whitney Biennial.

My take: Judge for yourself, but for me it is an interesting novelty more than a sustaining attraction. That being said, I didn’t like Faulkner at first either.

Russ Roberts, Guest Blogger!

by  Alex Tabarrok in

We are delighted to have our colleague, Russ Roberts, blogging with us over the next 10 days or so. Russ is the world’s only economist who has written a fable and a romance and a number of papers in top academic journals like the Journal of Political Economy.

What’s an economist doing writing a romance? Well, economics is a romantic science. Don’t believe me? Here is a description of Russ’s book The Invisible Heart.

Sam lives and breathes capitalism. He thinks that most government regulation is unnecessary or even harmful. He believes that success in business is a virtue. He believes that our humanity flourishes under economic freedom. Laura prefers Wordsworth to the Wall Street Journal. Where Sam sees victors, she sees victims. She wants the government to protect consumers and workers from the excesses of Sam’s beloved marketplace. While Sam and Laura argue about how to make the world a better place, a parallel story unfolds across town. Erica Baldwin, the crusading head of a government watchdog agency, tries to bring Charles Krauss, a ruthless CEO, to justice. How are these two dramas connected? Why is Sam under threat of dismissal? Will Erica Baldwin find the evidence she needs? Can Laura love a man with an Adam Smith poster on his wall?

Doesn’t it just make you want to tune in tomorrow?

Is Microsoft the new language arbiter?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Microsoft has decided to write Windows for Welsh.

Microsoft programmes already run in 40 languages including English, Spanish, Arabic and Chinese variants.

A Welsh start menu and some commands will be available in about six months.

Microsoft said it has received complaints from places such as Catalonia, Malaysia and the Arctic regions of Canada.

They claim the switch from native languages online is also affecting everyday speech, said BBC North America Business Correspondent Stephen Evans.

Some argue the fewer languages the better for global trade and understanding, but Microsoft is siding with “linguistic diversity”, he said.

The other big linguistic groups to benefit from the expansion will be speakers of Gujarati and Tamil in India, of Catalan in Spain, and of Bahasa in Malaysia.

Native languages from Northern Canada and Ethiopia will also be added.

My take: Whether or not a language is focal will be determined with increasing rapidity.

Thanks to Cronaca.com for the link.

Make your TV a work of art

by  Tyler Cowen in

That’s right, put a digital copy of a masterpiece as a screensaver on your TV:

An expensive new digital television is big, beautiful, flat and can hang on the wall. Some might even consider the set a piece of art.

RGB Labs charges for subscriptions to images such as The Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre Auguste Renoir.

So why not display Picasso, Renoir, Monet and other masters on the screen itself?

Three companies have recently formed to help consumers do just that…

[One of them] Chandler’s company, Dream City, has acquired licensing rights to more than 1,000 pieces of art, including masterpieces from Cézanne, Van Gogh and Picasso. He sells them in $14.95, 30-piece collections as screensavers. A Web site offers step-by-step instructions on how to connect a PC to the TV and run a slide-show loop on your big screen.

The core idea came from Bill Gates:

Microsoft (MSFT) Chairman Bill Gates has displayed art on wall-mounted PC screens at his home for years. That’s where Chandler got the idea for Dream City.

He put a frame around a monitor hooked to an old PC, hung it on the wall and showed family photographs and art.

“At parties, people just stood there, mesmerized,” Chandler says. “I realized there was a business there.”

Here is the whole story, which includes a Renoir image on a big TV screen.

My take: The idea is a promising start, but I am repelled by the idea of copies of classic paintings in my living room. Looking at lower quality reproductions would depress me. It would also make me wonder why I cannot find anything more personal, more current, and more alive to enjoy. I am keener on the idea of art created especially for this medium, let’s hope that is forthcoming.

Addendum: Michael Giesbrecht writes: “You’re in luck, Tyler! Literally hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of art, created especially for this medium, are taken to market each year, and have been for quite some time. Check out netflix.com. In the common vernacular, the medium is referred to as a “movie”. Many of them look great displayed on wall-mounted digital television screens.” You can put up a static image from these movies quite easily. I love Renoir but on my screen I want Blade Runner.

A rant against Gateway service

by  Alex Tabarrok in

I’m off to the North Carolina beach so expect reduced blogging from me. Ordinarily, I would holiday-blog when my wife wasn’t looking but my portable refused to boot more than two weeks ago. It was obviously a hardware problem so I knew the otherwise capable techs at GMU couldn’t fix it but before taking it to Gateway I needed their authorization. That took a few days. After a week of sitting on the bench, the Gateway store in Fairfax ran a diagnostic and realized that they couldn’t fix it either. They promised to expedite it to the main service center. A week later I found out they were still waiting for, get this, a box to be sent to them so they could send the portable to the service center. A box#$*! (Worse yet, I gave it to them in the original box it came in – foam included.) So finally the computer makes it to the main service center and now I am told it is waiting for a part!##!@! Now, wouldn’t you put your service center and parts warehouse close together like say in the same phrelling place?