Blurbs [Online travel, B2B2C implementation]

Executive Roundtable: Street Talk (11/9/17), Phocuswright Conference Rachael Rothman, Sr. Analyst, Gaming, Lodging, and Leisure at Susquehanna Financial Group (on hotel demand) “I think we know from the industry-wide data that there is a definite shift to book direct…I would also just highlight that going back 30 years from hotel school, we always thought of […]

[CSGP – CoStar Group; REIS – Reis Inc.] Tale of Two Data Providers

Before CoStar came onto the scene in 1987, getting clean and current data on rental rates, vacancies, absorption, and precedent comps needed to transact in commercial real estate was a vexing, ad hoc process.  In the early/mid-90s, juniors staffed across various financial institutions devoted significant chunks of their workweeks collecting and scrubbing this information.  Or […]

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[TripAdvisor, Trivago, OTAs] Thoughts on the Carnage

Trivago’s “relevance assessment dimension”, implemented in late 2016, is an algorithmic adjustment that compels hotel advertisers to improve their landing sites and booking engines if they want to rank higher in trivago’s search results.  The idea is that while the user experience starts with a room search on trivago, it extends to when she clicks off […]

[ODFL – Old Dominion Freight Line] Superb Logistics Company

I don’t think there’s anything to do here given the lofty valuation (30x on what feel like peak earnings), but I like this company and thought it was worth a quick shout out.  Old Dominion is an incredibly well-run business staffed with high-caliber folks who care deeply about their work.  The first thing to understand […]

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[ADI – Analog Devices] A Silent Hero

Almost every electronic device you use on a daily basis is infested with analog chips that monitor, amplify, and transform real world phenomena (weight, light, temperature, amplitude, power), into digital signals that electrical systems can understand.  These chips are the silent and unappreciated heroes that enable safety and infotainment features in cars, wireless infrastructure equipment, […]

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[WIX – Wix.com] Scaling Profitably

Sometime in late 2015, I built my first website.  Or rather, I purchased a subscription on weebly.com, a website builder, and proceeded to upload photos and drag and drop pre-configured modules into a blank screen.  The process was easy, which helped as I was clueless; the layout was unoriginal and austere, which sufficed as the […]

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[EQIX – Equinix; INXN – Interxion] Network Effects in a Box

The “internet”, as the name implies, is a network of networks.  Scuttleblurb.com is sitting on server somewhere connected to an IP network different from the one your device is connected to and the fact that you are reading this means those two networks are communicating.  Likewise, if your internet service provider is Charter and you’d like […]

Podcast Blurbs [Larry Summers, Levered restaurant franchisees, Books vs. podcasts, Cramer on MongoDB]

Freakonomics Radio (9/28/17; Why Larry Summers is the Economist Everyone Hates to Love) Larry Summers: (On infrastructure) “I think we’ve completely mismanaged infrastructure investment in the United States.  It’s nuts that when interest rates are lower than they’ve been at any time in the last 50 years that we’re also investing less net of depreciation…it’s […]