OPCPL
by Dima on November 10, 2007
in development, digital divide, economics
OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) seems to become OPCPL (One Potential Consumer Per Laptop). I just read that EA are going to install a copy of SimCity on every laptop in OLPC project. Since the original post didn’t have any references I re-checked and it looks like this is actually going to happen – EA are going to put the 1989 version of SimCity on OLPC machines.
The official rhetoric is that SimCity has educational aspect. Frankly I tend to agree and, regardless, I think this was a good and fun game. However I keep on wondering if this step is really motivated by educational aspirations, or this is “putting a foot in the door” in an attempt to capture potential future consumers at the very beginning? Maybe both?
Maybe i was wrong
About a year and a half ago TheMarker, an Israeli economic journal, published a short article of mine reacting to Google’s entrance to the Israeli market. One of the claims i made there was about the online advertisement market being too small to suggest a significant impact on the overall advertisement industry in Israel. Back then, the online advertisement accounted for only 5-7% of the entire advertisement industry. I will have to check this number again in light of the recent announcement of NY Times that they are dropping their paid premium services based on a calculation that keeping the content open will generate more advertisement-based income (thanks Erik for pointing that out). Although Vivian Schiller, the Web site’s Vice President and General Manager, refused to expose the exact estimations, giving up US $10 million a year generated through the subscribed services is an interesting indicator. Of course I am still missing many numbers, and $10 million is not such a big figure in the advertising industry standards, but I can’t help but wondering, if i haven’t been too pessimistic about that in the first place.
Russian oil vs. Russian high-tech
by Dima on July 11, 2007
in development, digital divide, economics, research, technology
One of the critical stream in developmental literature, namely dependency theory, suggests that one of the main reasons for the growing gaps between developing and the developed worlds are extractive institutions set up during the colonial times. Such institutions favor export of natural resources of a developing country to the developed world, while neglecting investment in local sustainable infrastructures needed for socioeconomic and political development. The idea is that those institutions are so deeply rooted and have entered a path that it will be very difficult to change.
Recently i read this article from Washington post about Russia neglecting development of high-tech industry in favor of natural resources industries. I couldn’t help myself but noticing a conflict. Russia is probably one of the largest developing countries today and has never actually been colonized. At the same time, here it is investing in the same extractive institutions, while it could invest in industries that would probably contribute to a more sustainable development in the long run, such as the MITs.
Why is it happening? Is it the global economic system that forces a country to sell it assets in order to survive? Or is it lack of vision of the leaders combined with personal ambition/greediness motivating instant gratifications?
