Episodes

  • Platform Classics: Two-Sided Network Effects

    Platform Classics: Two-Sided Network Effects
    Jan 31 2025
    Parker and Van Alstyne's seminal paper explores two-sided network effects in information markets, demonstrating how firms can strategically offer products for free by leveraging distinct markets of content providers and end consumers. Their model reveals that by understanding network externalities, companies can increase consumer welfare and firm profits simultaneously through sophisticated product coupling and pricing strategies. The research provides critical insights into how digital platforms like operating systems and internet browsers create value by balancing the needs of different user groups, effectively explaining the economic logic behind seemingly counterintuitive business models that offer core products at zero cost.
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    13 mins
  • Externalities and Platform Markets with Paavo Ritala

    Externalities and Platform Markets with Paavo Ritala
    Jan 29 2025
    The discussion begins with positive network externalities, which are broken down into three key factors: accumulation, variety, and utility. Accumulation describes how interconnected items on a platform, such as Wikipedia articles, create value. Variety refers to the value generated by diverse complements, exemplified by apps in an app store. Utility represents the immediate value a platform offers, like an Uber ride. We then explore the concept of negative network externalities, which occur when positive effects become excessive. These include rivalry from increased user numbers, choice overload due to excessive variety, fragmentation from over-accumulation, and value degradation resulting from poor utility. The discussion further introduces the concept of amplified network externalities. This includes network connectivity and horizontal complementarity. Horizontal complementarity, a concept the authors note as underexplored, refers to the value created when platform complements are used together, such as calendar and video conference apps on a smartphone. The authors mention writing another paper focused solely on this concept. They also highlight super apps like WeChat and Grab as examples of platforms attempting to internalize horizontal externalities. This comprehensive framework provides a nuanced understanding of how network effects operate in platform markets, offering insights into both the positive and negative aspects of platform growth and diversification.
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    41 mins
  • Platform Classics: Design Rules, Volume One

    Platform Classics: Design Rules, Volume One
    Jan 24 2025
    Baldwin and Clark's "Design Rules, Volume 1" explores how modular design transforms technological innovation. The book reveals how breaking complex systems into independent, interconnected components enables faster, more flexible technological development. By analyzing design architectures, the authors demonstrate how modularity reduces complexity, accelerates innovation, and provides strategic advantages across technological domains.
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    16 mins
  • Platforms and Ecosystems with Wim Vanhaverbeke

    Platforms and Ecosystems with Wim Vanhaverbeke
    Jan 22 2025
    This podcast episode features Wim Vanhaverbeke, a digital strategy and open innovation expert, discussing digital platforms and their impact on open innovation. Vanhaverbeke explains his perspective on platforms as business models facilitating interactions, highlighting the complexities of multi-sided B2B platforms compared to two-sided models. He details how digitalization and AI enhance open innovation, offering examples of companies using platforms internally and externally for innovation. The conversation further explores the challenges managers face adapting to these evolving platform dynamics and the crucial role of data sharing in overcoming adoption barriers, particularly within regulated sectors like healthcare. Finally, Vanhaverbeke discusses future research directions focusing on open innovation, sustainability, and the democratizing effects of technology.
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    41 mins
  • Platform Classics: Foundational works on the Economics of Networks

    Platform Classics: Foundational works on the Economics of Networks
    Jan 17 2025
    Join us as we analyze the complex dynamics of markets shaped by network effects. We'll investigate how compatibility decisions and sponsorship influence technology adoption and how the presence of two-sided platforms creates unique challenges and opportunities. To shed light on these critical market forces, we draw from the work of Katz and Shapiro (1985, 1986) and Rochet and Tirole (2003).
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    21 mins
  • Platform Strategy and Business Models with Andrei Hagiu

    Platform Strategy and Business Models with Andrei Hagiu
    Jan 15 2025
    This conversation with Andrei Hagiu explores the power dynamics between platforms and participants, highlighting platform traps where dominant platforms can exert control over sellers. The discussion also considers the potential of blockchain technology to decentralize platforms and create more equitable business models.
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    46 mins
  • Interaction Fields with Erich Joachimsthaler

    Interaction Fields with Erich Joachimsthaler
    Apr 3 2024
    In The Interaction Field, management expert and professor Erich Joachimsthaler explains that the only way to thrive in this environment is through the Interaction Field model. Companies who embrace this model generate, facilitate, and benefit from data exchanges among multiple people and groups -- from customers and stakeholders, but also from those you wouldn't expect to be in the mix, like suppliers, software developers, regulators, and even competitors.
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    41 mins
  • Platform Cooperatives with Trebor Scholz

    Platform Cooperatives with Trebor Scholz
    Mar 27 2024
    Platform cooperatives reimagine a world where domestic workers can double their income by establishing their platform. On this internet, platforms such as Twitch, Twitter, and Roblox are owned by their streamers, users, and creators. What if small fishing communities in Mexico or farmers in Kerala had the power to determine what data they collected about their work and how they utilized that data? Platform cooperatives are not a figment of the romantic imagination, but rather a reality transforming industries today. Collectives that leverage technology offer an urgent and practical solution to shift how businesses are owned and controlled, allowing workers to make decisions together. In this book, researcher and activist Trebor Scholz explores how these new forms of business, powered by peer principles, are paving the way for a more equitable economy that benefits everyone.
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    50 mins