Publications

February 2021
Case

Threadless: The Renewal of an Online Community

By: Shane Greenstein, Karim Lakhani and Christian Godwin

Threadless, an online apparel company and artist community which Jake Nickell founded in 2000, continued to maintain its status as a top company in the online apparel industry during its second decade. From 2010 to 2020, Threadless continued to operate its... View Details

07 Apr 2020
News

Bringing the Case Method Online

08 Aug 2016
News

Harvard B-School’s New Online Finance Course

17 Jun 2022
News

In Defense of Online Anonymity

01 Mar 2005
News

Online Job Bank Debuts

SULLIVAN: “Searches can be made by industry, function, location, salary, and several other variables.” Building on the traditional strengths and advantages of alumni networking, a newly launched online Alumni Job Bank has upgraded the... View Details

Keywords: Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

24 Apr 2014
News

Optimizing search technology

Olivier Dumon (MBA 1998) is managing director of academic and government markets for global publishing giant Elsevier, where he’s working on optimizing online search protocols. He believes that the more the View Details

October 14, 2019
Article

Designing Better Online Review Systems

By: Geoff Donaker, Hyunjin Kim and Michael Luca

Online reviews are transforming the way consumers choose products and services of all sorts. We turn to TripAdvisor to plan a vacation, Zocdoc to find a doctor, and Yelp to choose a new restaurant. Reviews can create value for buyers and sellers alike, but only if they... View Details

Keywords: Reviews; Internet and the Web; Design; Quality; Reputation

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01 Dec 2008
News

Historic HBS Photos Online

To mark the School’s Centennial, archivists at the Baker Library | Bloomberg Center compiled significant collections of historical photographs. The Institutional Memory project’s more than 400 images can be accessed at: http://institutionalmemory.hbs.edu/photogallery.... View Details

01 Dec 2009
News

HBS Philanthropy Report Online

This year, the School’s annual donor report will be published online. The change from a print publication reflects a cost savings consistent with a School-wide effort to contain expenses, as well as a desire for environmentally sustainable communications. The new... View Details

February 2011 (Revised November 2012)
Case

PatientsLikeMe: An Online Community of Patients

By: Sunil Gupta and Jason Riis

PatientsLikeMe (PLM) is an online community where patients share their personal experiences with a disease, find other patients like them, and learn from each other. The company was founded by Jamie and Ben Heywood when their 29-year-old brother was diagnosed with ALS... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Health Disorders; Knowledge Sharing; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Launch; Digital Platforms; Social and Collaborative Networks; Health Industry

30 Nov 2016
Op-Ed

Where Could More Regulation Help Small Businesses? Online Lending.

services where commonsense regulation is welcome and needed: online lending to businesses. Over the last few years online business lending has exploded. Dozens of “financial technology” (fintech) players... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills and Brayden McCarthy; Financial Services

August 2020 (Revised March 2021)
Supplement

Migros Turkey: Scaling Online Operations (B)

By: Antonio Moreno and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in February 2020 as Ozgur Tort and Mustafa Bartin, CEO and chief large-format and online retail officer of Migros Ticaret A.S. (Migros), Turkey’s oldest and one of its largest supermarket chains, are looking over the results of the fulfillment pilot the... View Details

Keywords: Grocery; Business Model; Strategy; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Value Creation; Globalization; Competition; Expansion; Logistics; Profit; Resource Allocation; Corporate Strategy; Retail Industry; Turkey

2013
Chapter

The Design of Online Advertising Markets

By: Benjamin Edelman

Because the market for online advertising is both new and fast-changing, participants experiment with all manner of variations. Should an advertiser's payment reflect the number of times an ad was shown, the number of times it was clicked, the number of sales that... View Details

Keywords: Misleading and Fraudulent Advertising; Online Advertising; Price; Market Design; Measurement and Metrics; Sales; Motivation and Incentives; Internet and the Web

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March–April 2025
Article

Getting Value from Digital Technologies

By: Frank Cespedes and Georg Krentzel

Companies need digital technologies in an omni-channel buying world where online and in-person interactions are complements, not either/or substitutes. Multi-channel hybrid sales solutions are required, but what are the key requirements for using the available... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Technology Adoption; Competitive Advantage

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March 2016 (Revised August 2016)
Case

CreditEase: Taking Inclusive Finance Online

By: Michael Chu, John S. Ji and Nancy Hua Dai

The world’s largest peer-to-peer (P2P) lender annually disbursing over a million loans totaling $10 billion, China’s CreditEase, must decide whether to IPO in the NYSE its online lending platform, Yirendai, before the year-end window closes in 2015. Yirendai sought to... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Internet and the Web; Financing and Loans; Credit; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry; China

01 Apr 2000
News

A "Growing" Online Community

year expanding throughout Latin America. Agropool's revenues will come from fees charged to companies selling products on its Web site. With the online community growing in Latin America, Grippo noted the importance of teamwork among new... View Details

13 May 2024
Research & Ideas

Picture This: Why Online Image Searches Drive Purchases

Professor of Business at HBS, who is a coauthor of the new research. “Companies are finally coming to this realization and adjusting online search tools accordingly.” The market for AI technology in... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Information Technology; Information Technology; Information Technology; Information Technology

October 2014
Module Note

Market Design in Online Businesses (Abridged)

By: Peter Coles and Benjamin Edelman

The purpose of this note is to characterize the challenges entrepreneurs may face in creating a well-functioning ecosystem of users, and to equip entrepreneurs with tools to overcome these obstacles. The note is meant to accompany the final module of the "The Online... View Details

Keywords: Platform Design; Network Effects; Market Design; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry