Lynne Kiesling Today’s Wall Street Journal has an interview with Giorgio Armani about the business side of his vastly successful fashion house (subscription required). Coming to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s for soft, yet elegant, tailored fashions for men and women, Armani has extended his name brand to home furnishings, fragrance, makeup, and accessories. …
Lynne Kiesling A coda (pun intended) to our music week features comes from this weekend’s Wall Street Journal, which had an article (subscription required) about U.S. hip-hop band Gnarls Barkley. Their single “Crazy” entered the U.K. singles charts at number 1, making this the first song to do so that has only been released on …
Topping the Singles Chart With Online-only Releases Read More »
Michael Giberson An article recently published in Science reports on research demonstrating that while many people initially prefer participating in groups without the ability to punish or be punished by others, over time subjects migrate into a group allowing punishment. Or, as the authors — ?zg?r G?rerk, Bernd Irlenbusch, and Bettina Rockenbach — explain it …
Lynne Kiesling As a follow up to my snotty remark about Windows Media Player and IE in my prior post, I found Grant McCracken singing the same tune when trying to access the Sony “Connect” music web site with Firefox. I find this a lot with music players at AccuRadio, RadioIO, and other places. Xfm …
Lynne Kiesling In my music post from Monday I mentioned that I had purchased a Mute Math. In fact, of the 6 CDs I’ve listened to (the other two are still on backorder), Mute Math is the one I like the best thus far. They are really, really below the radar screen, and I admittedly …
The Economics of Paste Magazine and the Long Tail in Music Journalism Read More »
Michael Giberson From The Economist comes news of a game-theory based software tool that divorcing couples can use to divide property: Researchers in Australia have developed a computer program that relies on a branch of mathematics known as game theory to produce a fairer outcome when dividing property. Instead of the traditional approach of dividing …
Lynne Kiesling This week is Music Week at KP; we’ll have content on the economics, politics, aesthetics, and culture of music. In part what inspires this week’s focus is some recent new music purchases I’ve made and some of their characteristics. These features indicate some pretty substantial changes in the economics of music creation and …
Has the Death of the Music Label Started? Depends on What Kind of Label You Mean Read More »
Lynne Kiesling From Technology Review today, news of new research from Penn State on liquid fuel from coal: Schobert and his colleagues make the fuel using refined coal oil, which is a byproduct of coke manufacture; the byproduct is mixed at an oil refinery with a product of crude oil called light cycle oil. This …
Lynne Kiesling Phew, it felt good to write a post like that last one. You’ve probably noticed some self-censoring going on here at KP over the past couple of months. The reason for that is that I was doing some expert testimony analysis on a retail competition issue, and felt the need to hold back …
Lynne Kiesling Periods of rising costs make it hard to be a market process supporter. Nowhere is this more true than in electric power, where a century of regulator-regulated co-dependency has created a culture of price control. Right now Maryland is the center of this debate, triggered by economic and political motives, including rising natural …
Evaluating Electricity “Deregulation” in a Period of Rising Fuel Costs Read More »
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