Miscellaneous

Despite the widespread use of social media by entrepreneurs and small businesses, little analysis has been performed regarding its effectiveness, state Technology Policy Institute’s Scott Wallsten and Corwin Rhyan in “Social Media and Entrepreneurship: The Case of Food Trucks.” To help shed light on this issue, the authors examine the relationship between the use of social media and internet services by mobile food truck operators and the truck’s ability to stay in business.

Digital channels for distribution create new opportunities for artists and content owners, but also new challenges in enforcing copyright and reducing piracy. How much of an impact does piracy have on the creative industries? Have past efforts to curb piracy been effective? This panel discussion will highlight findings from recent empirical research analyzing the impact of piracy on sales of copyrighted products and quantifying the effectiveness of both policy-based and market-based strategies for fighting piracy.

Traditional pay TV is beginning to lose subscribers. Wall Street analyst Craig Moffett called this past year pay TV’s “worst 12 month stretch ever.” At the same time, over-the-top providers, primarily Netflix, are growing quickly. Yet, not all analysts believe Netflix has the winning business model. New business models and threats to old business models dovetail with various efforts at policy reform in Washington, including debates over usage-based billing, Internet “signal importation,” and a la carte choices rather than bundles of channels. This conference will discuss these and other issues facing the video market.

Michael D. Smith, Professor of Information Systems and Marketing and Co-Director of the Initiative for Digital Entertainment Analytics at Carnegie Mellon University, has joined the Technology Policy Institute as an Adjunct Senior Fellow. Smith’s research focuses on firm and consumer behavior in online markets – specifically markets for digital information and digital media products. Recent papers authored by Professor Smith and his colleagues include “Piracy and Copyright Enforcement,” and “Gone in 60 Seconds: The Impact of the Megaupload Shutdown on Movie Sales.”

Charles R. Hulten, Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland, has joined the Technology Policy Institute as an Adjunct Senior Fellow.

Online leisure crowds out other, offline activities such as offline leisure, work, and sleep, finds Scott Wallsten in “What Are We Not Doing When We’re Online?” released as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Wallsten, TPI Senior Fellow and Vice President for Research, analyzed the 2003 – 2011 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey to determine how online leisure is substituting for other leisure activities, to what extent and how online activities are evolving.