Oyku

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On April 26, 2017, Oyku commented on Unity: The biggest platform for creating VR content :

Great post Bipul, thanks for sharing! It is fascinating to see how valuable content creation is, and I do think software, rather than hardware, is the way to grow in AR/VR business. While I agree with your future expansion strategies, I also wonder if it would make sense for them to join (or get acquired by) one of the big HMD players like Microsoft and provide an integrated solution. The industry seems to have too many modular players at a stage when the technology is not fully understood. I think at this stage integrated solution providers might create more value.

On April 26, 2017, Oyku commented on Lowe’s: VR, the Future of Retail :

Very interesting post! I agree that this is a great differentiation strategy for an established retailer like Lowe’s. In order to increase the reach of this technology, I wonder if Lowe’s should seek to build partnership with one of the device manufacturers. While there is already a plethora of hardware manufacturers of AR/VR headsets, content creation seems to lag behind. Lowe’s can truly capitalize on its technology if it somehow becomes part of the default content in these headsets.

On April 26, 2017, Oyku commented on Penrose Studios: The Pixar of VR? :

Very interesting post – thanks for sharing! I completely agree that content is one of the key differentiators in this industry. As we have seen in other cases, hardware developers may enjoy initial gains but they are bound to face the commoditization threat. I wonder if Penrose can build on crowdsourcing for generation of content ideas. Building an exclusive community of designers early on may become an important competitive advantage for the company.

On April 6, 2017, Oyku commented on One Robot to Rule Them All :

Very interesting, Bansi thanks for sharing! While I think there is great potential in providing third-party data analytics capabilities I am concerned about their ability to compete with Amazon/Google. As you correctly pointed out Amazon/Google have their own cloud infrastructure and most data scientists rely on Amazon cloud services to run their ‘big data’ projects. How do you think Amazon will react if DataRobot grows fast?

On April 6, 2017, Oyku commented on OpenDoor: applying big data to home selling :

Interesting post Meili, thanks for sharing! I agree that real estate promises great returns and if they can scale they are model they are likely to be very successful. My concern is about their scalability – you mentioned that they are narrowly focused on single-family hoses priced between $125-500k. This narrow criteria and focus on collecting inputs indicate that they may be relying too much on manual data collection rather than building a robust predictive model. How much do you think can they scale with a labor-intensive data collection process?

Very interesting post James, thanks for sharing! While working with the government gives them credibility I am worried about their ability to scale, especially internationally. Also, do you think government involvement would constrain their ability to innovate or undermine their independence in decision-making?

Great post! I found your first reason, inability to create and capture value, as the most salient issue in their business strategy. For example the crowdsourcing businesses that are based on competition-driven idea generation seem to be more successful. Do you think Quirky would have been more successful if they had partnered with companies to host competitions that asked participants to develop products for specific problems?

On March 21, 2017, Oyku commented on CrowdMed: Solving medical puzzles :

Thanks for the post – it was interesting to read! Similar to what Sonali said above, I also found the subscription fee to be high and wonder if they can attract enough customers to subsidize the cost of physicians. Are they targeting chronic disease patients or any specific age group? Besides the question around subscription model, I think this is an interesting initiative that might help reduce healthcare costs in the long run. Do you think partnership with Medicare/Medicaid would be viable?

On February 3, 2017, Oyku commented on Sephora: Staying Relevant in Brick and Mortar :

Great post, Ravneet, thanks for sharing! I agree with your description of the store experience being like a ‘playground’ for women, it is indeed this experience that drives up their sales. However I am curious to see whether they can sustain this level of technology investment going forward. Do you have a sense of how they are funding their investments? Do they have high margins on certain products or is it their sales volume that help subsidize the cost of new technology employed in stores?

Ian, great post – thank you for sharing it! If your hypothesis is true (if Trump won thanks to his data-backed, targeted marketing), this raises a serious question on the function of democracy in developed countries and the efficiency of markets. This is an interesting digital transformation case, but more importantly I think it points to a market failure. While in traditional capitalism capital is the unfair influencing mechanism, now data is acting as the weapon that distorts market equilibrium.