An argument for retaining the notion of personal property in the products we “buy” in the digital marketplace.If you buy a book at the bookstore, you own it. You can take it home, scribble in the margins, put in on the shelf, lend it to a friend, sell it at a garage sale. But is the same thing true for the ebooks or other digital goods you buy? Retailers and copyright holders argue that you don't own those purchases, you merely license them. That means your ebook v...

If you buy a book at the bookstore, you own it. You can take it home, scribble in the margins, put in on the shelf, lend it to a friend, or sell it at a garage sale. But is the same thing true for the e-books or other digital goods you buy? Retailers and copyright holders argue that you don’t own those purchases, you merely license them. That means your e-book vendor can delete the book from your device without warning or explanation—as Amazon deleted Orwell’s 1984 from the Kindle...

He is Thomas Edison and Henry Ford rolled into one -- except that William Henry Gates III maybe smarter and more successful than either.He is America's richest man, and on the corporate landscape, he may well be the most feared. In less than a generation, Bill Gates has done nothing less than change the way we live and work.Here is Bill Gate's story, taking you inside the mind of this brilliant visionary and inside the rise of Microsoft, the world's most succesful corporation. What...

The online economy offers challenges to traditional businesses as well as incredible opportunities. Chris Anderson makes the compelling case that in many instances businesses can succeed best by giving away more than they charge for.Known as "Freemium," this combination of free and paid is emerging as one of the most powerful digital business models. In Free, Chris Anderson explores this radical idea for the new global economy and demonstrates how it can b...

A practical guide to the new economy that is transforming the way we live, work, and play.Uber. Airbnb. Amazon. Apple. PayPal. All of these companies disrupted their markets when they launched. Today they are industry leaders. What’s the secret to their success?These cutting-edge businesses are built on platforms: two-sided markets that are revolutionizing the way we do business. Written by three of the most sought-after experts on platform businesses, ...

Peter Cappelli confronts the myth of the skills gap and provides an actionable path forward to put people back to work.Even in a time of perilously high unemployment, companies contend that they cannot find the employees they need. Pointing to a skills gap, employers argue applicants are simply not qualified; schools aren't preparing students for jobs; the government isn't letting in enough high-skill immigrants; and even when the match is right, prospective employ...

**Why doesn’t the explosive growth of companies like Facebook and Uber deliver more prosperity for everyone?What is the systemic problem that sets the rich against the poor and the technologists against everybody else?**When protesters shattered the windows of a bus carrying Google employees to work, their anger may have been justifiable, but it was misdirected. The true conflict of our age isn’t between the unemployed and the digital elite, or even the 99 percent and the 1...

Can we master the technologies we create before they master us? A "punchy and provocative" assessment by one of Silicon Valley's sharpest observers ( Financial Times).WTF? can be an expression of amazement or of dismay—and today's technology elicits both reactions. In this book, Tim O'Reilly, dubbed "the Oracle of Silicon Valley" by Inc. magazine, explores the upsides—and potential downsides—of today's WTF? technologies.What is the future wh...

Caveat venditor-let the seller bewareWhile marketers look for more ways to get personal with customers, including new tricks with big data,” customers are about to get personal in their own ways, with their own tools. Soon consumers will be able to: Control the flow and use of personal data Build their own loyalty programs Dictate their own terms of service Tell whole markets what they want, how they want it, where and when they sh...

When Robin Chase cofounded Zipcar, she not only started a business but established the foundation for one of the most important economic and social ideas of our time: the collaborative economy. With this important book, she broadens our thinking about the ways in which the economy is being transformed and shows how the Peers Inc model is changing the very nature of capitalism.When the best of people power is combined with the best of corporate power to form "Peers Inc" organization...

A different kind of matchmaker.Many of the most dynamic public companies, from Alibaba to Facebook to Visa, and the most valuable start-ups, such as Airbnb and Uber, are matchmakers that connect one group of customers with another group of customers. Economists call matchmakers multisided platforms because they provide physical or virtual platforms for multiple groups to get together. Dating sites connect people with potential matches, for example, and rid...

“An insightful guide to the forces shaping our economy” that explores the far-ranging implications of the shift to crowd-based capitalism—with case studies on Uber, Airbnb, and others (Hal Varian, Chief Economist at Google)Sharing isn’t new. Giving someone a ride, having a guest in your spare room, running errands for someone, participating in a supper club—these are not revolutionary concepts. What is new, in the “sharing economy,” is that you are not helping a fr...