Short takes

I’ve not had a chance to post in the recent week or so — been busy with the conference I mentioned yesterday. But here are a number of items in the news that caught my eye — just proof that we already live in an intangible economy.

Location Data From Phones Is Valuable for Ads: It took the New York Times to tell you that?

Blockbuster: A video relic or Dish Networks’ new secret weapon against Netflix?. Why, according to The Washington Post, the Dish Networks CEO betting big on buying the failing Blockbuster? Because Blockbuster owns a very valuable intangible asset: licensing right to stream movies over the Internet.

Value Added: The future of manufacturing might just be in Ashburn: It’s called Prototype Productions, Inc — a company that specializes in rapid prototyping and moving into 3-D printing. The future is already here (see earlier posting).

Ohio is spending $1.4 billion to attract jobs. Will it work?. Good question, USA Today. The problem is the plan is to build “industrial parks” on the theory that if you build it they will come. Why is this a problem? Because we have trying this strategy for decades and it doesn’t work. I remember in the 70′s when my home town built an “industrial park” — which remained empty . So rather than move to the future, we are stuck in the past.

Japan’s Disaster and the Manufacturing Meltdown. a Foreign Affairs article that should convince you that supply chain resilience is an important intangible asset.

Getting From the Internet What It Knows About You. New York Times article on why you should have at least access to your own data.

Read more at The Intangible economy