Cyber Monday

A big day for Internet retail firms, many of the companies posted sales increases over the prior period this time last year. Overstock, however, didn't post an increase in sales.

From an article on internet retailer:

At Overstock.com, sales fell 3% yesterday compared with the same Monday last year. “Last year Cyber Monday was in November. In November we had gunned marketing, which gave us a bigger November than we should have had, and a weaker December,” says CEO Patrick Byrne. “So our expectation has been to have a hard time matching November’s days this year, but then to make up some ground in December.” read the rest of the article here.

How may this affect your forecast?

What other macro-economic factors may affect your forecast?

Instant Netflix

Apparently it's just like adding water to instant rolled oats, except instead of water you want an X-box360 with a Live membership (and you can avoid the step with the stove). Put simply, this new method of access to media allows for the consumer to watch their Netflix movies on the same screen they enjoy their X-box experience. See the BusinessWeek story here.

Does this line of business potentially increase Netflix's sources of competitive advantage relative to competitors?

What is blockbuster retaliating with, you ask... find out here.

Does this change your evaluation of the sustainability of this potential source of competitive advantage?

As an aside, any thoughts why X-box 360 outsold the Sony PS3 3-to-1 on Black Friday, and X-box was up 25% from last year's sales?

Rock on...

So here's an interesting question posited by David Edery in Steven Dubner's Freakonomics blog: Can guitar hero help save the music industry?

Some interesting 'statistics' from the article:

Weezer’s “My Name is Jonas,” a song originally released in 1994, saw a tenfold increase in sales when included in Guitar Hero 3.
Songs from The Who’s greatest hits released for Rock Band, experienced a 159 percent increase in SoundScan sales.
A special guitar hero featuring Aerosmith’s music resulted in more revenue for the band than any individual Aerosmith album.

So if this is valuable 'free advertising' for the record industry, why would they still charge the software companies money to include their licensed songs?

Grades, an economist's view...

As I start to prepare for my upcoming teaching semester in ACCT6620, my mind already thinks about grading...

One of my economics colleagues, Scott Schaefer, here at the U recently discussed grading from both an incentive point of view (i.e., you will work harder if you know you are graded) and a labor economics point of view (i.e., grades help employers and students more efficiently break down information asymmetries) .

It's worth keeping in mind :)

Read the entry in his blog here: http://utah-economist.blogspot.com/2008/11/grades.html