Publications

Read Now

17 Apr 2019
Cold Call Podcast

Would You Live in a Smart City Where Government Controls Privacy?

May 2017 (Revised March 2018)
Case

Predicting Consumer Tastes with Big Data at Gap

By: Ayelet Israeli and Jill Avery

CEO Art Peck was eliminating his creative directors for The Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic brands and promoting a collective creative ecosystem fueled by the input of big data. Rather than relying on artistic vision, Peck wanted the company to use the mining of big... View Details

January 2009
Case

Microsoft's Search

By: Jan W. Rivkin and Eric J. Van den Steen

In 2008, executives at Microsoft must decide how to compete against Google in the market for Internet search and advertising. The case describes how Microsoft has responded to a set of competitive threats in the past, how Google has gained a dominant position in... View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Competitive Strategy; Internet and the Web; United States

10 Dec 2013
First Look

First Look: December 10

a comprehensive approach to understanding the drivers of firm location choices by modeling not only the impact of location and firm heterogeneity, but also the strategic interaction among firms. August 2013 Harvard Business Review How View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

22 Jun 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Iterative Coordination and Innovation

Keywords: by Sourobh Ghosh and Andy Wu

October 2020 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Epic Games: Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite

By: Andy Wu, Miaomiao Zhang and Christopher Zhang

In the midst of intensifying public and political attention towards the market power of big technology, Epic Games in 2020 challenged the status quo that has existed for years in the Apple iOS and Google Android mobile application marketplaces and payment systems.... View Details

Keywords: Mobile Platforms; Mobile App Industry; Mobile Payment Systems; Antitrust; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Lawsuits and Litigation; Entrepreneurship; Competitive Strategy; Digital Platforms; United States

13 Oct 2015
First Look

October 13, 2015

new data that are emerging. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=49829 Does Google Content Degrade Google Search? Experimental Evidence By: Luca, Michael, Timothy Wu,... View Details

October 2014 (Revised May 2015)
Case

HandsOn Bay Area: Scaling Up Community Service

By: James Heskett

HandsOn Bay Area, an organization devoted to the performance of (and development of leaders for) community service, is undergoing a significant (and internally controversial) shift in its business model from "retail" projects involving individual volunteers to... View Details

January 2008 (Revised February 2010)
Case

Microsoft adCenter

By: Peter Coles and Benjamin Edelman

Microsoft considers alternatives to expand its presence in online advertising, especially text-based pay-per-click advertising. Google dominates, and it is unclear how Microsoft can grow, despite considerable technical and financial resources. Microsoft considers a set... View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Growth and Development Strategy; Competition; Advertising Industry

27 May 2014
First Look

First Look: May 27

through their purchasing. Working Papers Leveraging Market Power Through Tying and Bundling: Does Google Behave Anti-Competitively? By: Edelman, Benjamin Abstract—I examine Google's pattern and practice of tying and bundling to leverage... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

13 Feb 2024
Cold Call Podcast

Apple’s Dilemma: Balancing Privacy and Safety Responsibilities

Keywords: Re: Nien-he Hsieh & Henry W. McGee

January 2023
Supplement

Apple: Privacy vs. Safety (B)

By: Henry McGee, Nien-hê Hsieh and Christian Godwin

In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe, Apple and Google partnered to develop a contact tracing application that would collect information about users infected with the disease and notify those who they had been in contact with. While Apple/Google’s... View Details

November 2017
Teaching Note

Predicting Consumer Tastes with Big Data at Gap

By: Ayelet Israeli and Jill Avery

CEO Art Peck was eliminating his creative directors for The Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic brands and promoting a collective creative ecosystem fueled by the input of big data. Rather than relying on artistic vision, Peck wanted the company to use the mining of big... View Details

December 2023 (Revised August 2024)
Supplement

Microsoft Azure and the Cloud Wars (B)

By: Andy Wu and Matt Higgins

By 2023, the global market for cloud infrastructure had consolidated into a three-horse race. As of Q4 2022, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google collectively accounted for 66% of the global market. AWS had a market share of 33%, Microsoft Azure had 23%, and Google Cloud had... View Details

Keywords: Microsoft; Artificial Intelligence; AI; Competition; Information Infrastructure; Market Participation

Article

Rethinking the Profession Formerly Known as Advertising: How Data Science Is Disrupting the Work of Agencies

By: John A. Deighton

The article discusses the notion of advertising as a profession in relation to the impact of digital analytics and data-driven marketing. Topics include the history of internet marketing, the investments of the content-driven internet firms Facebook Inc. and Google... View Details

Keywords: Data Science; Digital Marketing; Marketing; Internet and the Web; Analytics and Data Science; Disruption

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Read Now

November 2007
Article

A Staged Solution to the Catch-22

By: Andrei Hagiu and Thomas Eisenmann

Companies looking to launch a two-sided platform—between, for example, credit card users and merchants, or search engine users and advertisers—must overcome the reluctance of one side to sign on until it's confident the other side will be well populated. It's a common... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Social Psychology; Two-Sided Platforms

Find at Harvard

October 2011
Case

Strategy and Governance at Yahoo! Inc.

By: Krishna G. Palepu, Suraj Srinivasan, David Lane and Ian McKown Cornell

Yahoo! faces a number of governance and strategic challenges in late 2011 as it tries to compete with rivals such as Google and find ways to monetize its shareholding and business links with Alibaba Group in China and Yahoo! Japan. The company is now valued at almost... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Corporate Governance; Web Services Industry