Yik Yak and the Network Effect
Yik Yak is an app that allows users to share gossip and information anonymously to their local network. In 2014, it was one of the most popular apps on college campus. It had a valuation around $300 million dollars and was able to close a $61 million Series B round in investments. However, its popularity […]
Google ends the public PageRank service
http://searchengineland.com/rip-google-pagerank-retrospective-244286 Early this year, Google decided to remove the PageRank scores from public view. This function was originally released in 2000 which enabled public to check the PageRank scores of any page. Google provides this function for users to assess the quality of each pages. Users can check the probability distribution used to represent […]
Network Effects and Data Network Effects
Network effects influence the number of potential customers to become active customers. As we discussed in class, the basic model of a new startup product, there will be multiple equilibrium points, which can either be stable or unstable. In general, the lower equilibrium point, z1, is unstable, which means that any point near […]
Ecosystems and Direct Benefits
Android and IOS are two of the largest and most popular operating systems. Though Android is run on products made from a wide range of companies, IOS is run solely on Apple products. While both have their own individual benefits, Apple really pulls away from its competitors through its implementation of a fully encompassing ecosystem. […]