BlogSat

As Hulu continues to eat up my time over the long weekend, I couldn't help wonder how much the fortunes of these two companies have changed over the years. As much as I dislike Google Trends  as a means to draw conclusions. the graph below does tell a story. As Hulu continues to add pretty decent features, execute steadily on a monetization strategy, and add interesting content (well, in the US anyway :)) ,  Joost just continues to struggle in each of these departments and more. The major lesson here? Like most good advice, it can be summed up by something you would hear from you mom: "Don't judge a book by its cover." Don't be too quick to judge: The assumption was that great pedigree, and early content deals were an indicator of the success Joost would have. Don't be too harsh to judge: Too many people assumed that their Old Media backers would mean that Hulu would be incompetent/execute poorly. Be charitable early, instead of late: Instead of mocking it ...

The Economist has an oh-so-creatively titled article, "Technology in 2008." Marc Andreessen gently skewers the article (deservedly so) out here. Its not just that its inaccurate; its naive and poorly researched. I actually sympathize with the writer. His/her/their ( name not on the article ) brief was probably "Hey. It'll be 2008 soon and you should write about technology next year." and its clearly something that she/he doesn't have a strong opinion/handle on. In b-school, a former journalist asked a professor who was making fun of an article, what he'd recommend journalists writing about a particular topic (in that case macroeconomics) do. The Professor replied, "Learn what they hell they're writing about!" Most authors decide what the article will be based on what they kind of know...and then look for data to fill the gaps, rather than just spend the time studying the field and then draw the conclusions that they need to. The proble...