3D provides depth to the bottom line, for now

Originally posted on the Berkeley DMEC blog page.

The movie industry is experience some better times with box offices revenues already running 8.8% ahead of 2009 figures (itself a $10B year). A huge driver has been the versioning for 3D and IMAX for tent-pole movies.  Increased traffic for 3D coupled with significant price increases (reported as much as a 26% bump) have continued to feed the hype.  This has been some positive news in terms as revenue as studios expect a 12% drop in DVD sales.

The question is how marginal traffic will making a 3D movie bring in?

With How to Train Your Dragon opening at 27% lower than Dreamwork’s Monster Vs. Aliens may indicate that new features like 3D may not necessarily trump good ole word of mouth. Indeed, the willingness to pay for a superior 3D experience for the family may not be enough to cover the $40-$60 required to take a family to the movies.

To convert a 3D movie, it takes studios an estimated $30 M, will the ROI remain? Wish three more 3D movies coming down this season’s pipeline, 3D may fast becoming the new normal.

3 Days in Basque Country

It's been three days since I flew from SFO to the Basque region in Spain.  Thus far:

• Spent a day in Bilbao
• Took naps on benches in Bilbao
• Went Pinxto hopping in San Sebastián
  
• Had dinner at a Cider House

Here are a couple pics of my trip to far.

My winter vacation...

Cross posted on the Berkeley MBA Student Blog:

"CAL" braving -15°C in the Forbidden City

They say that time waits for no one and it won't wait for me. What seemed like for long weeks have quickly sped by as I start for my second semester at Haas.


Berkeley, CA

A little known fact: Berkeley has a low-cost, fairly broad student health insurance plan (SHIP).  Under SHIP, we not only enjoy $5 copay for eye exams, but also 50% discount on Lasik. Following my last final, I walked across the street from Haas to the UC Berkeley School of Optometry.  The next couple days were a bit dark.



Taipei, Taiwan

A week later, got onto a plane and headed to Taiwan. My wife and I got married right before school started and I wanted to take her to Taipei to meet the rest of my family. While in Taipei, I was able to connect with Haas alumni.  I was amazed at the loyalty of the alumni that they were willing to go out of their way to meet a stranger.  I learned more about what consulting, technology, financial services was like in Taiwan.

Taiwan Alumni dinner with a MBA '11

Shanghai and Beijing, China

On the 5th, I flew from Taipei to Shanghai to meet up with 59 other Haas MBAs (combination of Full Time and evening/weekend) on a 10 day China Trek.  Treks are entirely student run and five of my classmates put together a truly memorable trek.

Read more here.

top tier

top tier
Originally uploaded by VinceHuang

Bit sized tasks [Volunteerism]

A platform called "The Extraordinaries," allows people who have even a few minutes of time to volunteer for a cause.  With an iPhone app, volunteers donate their time. The for profit company gets paid from nonprofits who are looking to outsource these micro-tasks.

Pretty cool.

Crowd-Sourced Mapping [Bing]

I've been a fan of Photosynth since I first heard of it during a TED presentation. While traveling to Jordan, I made a synth of El-Dier Monastery in Petra (Transformer 2). With geotagging, this will help to create a visually stunning and detailed user experience.

To compete with Google Maps, Microsoft has laced photosynth technology to create Bing Maps. Competition is always good. Both Google and Microsoft have been making incredible improvements to their mapping technology.

You can read more about it at Fastcompany.

Making it Rain [Cloud Computing]

Over the horizon, we're starting to see many clouds moving shifting over. With the city of angels moving over to Google Apps, its no surprise that Cloud Computing and SaaS (Software as a service) is picking up speed.

Karen Klein outlines a couple benefits of the cloud:

• Fixed cost advantage
• Keeping data safe

The field is still very green, with many players planting seeds. The key concerns are still reliability. This will be solved as the industry matures. What is perhaps most interesting, as Karen points out, is the shift in cost structure for paying for these services to a subscription based model.

Read Karen Klien's post here.

Image Source: ahisgett

Your story [lotd]

Source: roaddsidepictures

[Leaders] frame their life stories in ways that allow them to see themselves not as passive observers of their lives but rather as individuals who can develop self-awareness from their experiences. Authentic leaders act on that awareness by practicing their values and principles, sometimes at substantial risk to themselves.

-Bill George

What are your personal levers?

Pictures of Stats [Visualization]

"Artist Chris Jordan shows us an arresting view of what Western culture looks like. His supersized images picture some almost unimaginable statistics -- like the astonishing number of paper cups we use every single day."

In one of his pieces, he creates an fantastic image resembling pollution spewing out of a factor. When you get up close and personal, you realize that its actually made of lots of plastic cups. As a matter of fact, it includes 1 million cups, which is the number of plastic cups that are used on airline flights in the United States every six hours.

His work is a pretty cool intersection between art/design and infographics. You can check out his website here and his latest book here.

Diversions [Artful Procrastination]

Finals are next week, along with a series of papers and the >play conference. It through it all, I still seem to find some time to browse the Internets.

The Cat Piano from PRA on Vimeo.

I see MC curves [economics]

Dan Brown's latest book, "The Lost Symbol" sold an unprecedented 2 million copies in 2 weeks. Tim Hartford writes that part of the boost was driven (at least in the UK) by an unprecedented price war.

The Bookseller, an industry magazine, Waterstone’s offered a mere 50 per cent discount – £9.49 instead of £18.99. Tesco asked £7 and Asda £5. Asda’s book buyer celebrated “fantastic” sales, despite the fact that the store is thought to be losing £4 a copy. The old joke is made real: losing money on every sale, but making it up on volume.  The Book Depository, an online retailer, grabbed headlines with a price of £4.99 – whereupon Amazon quickly cut prices to match. These prices have prompted many people in the industry to feats of rhetorical self-flagellation. Industry insiders complained to The Bookseller about “ridiculously aggressive discounting” and asked “how can the book trade take itself seriously?”

Tim then proceeds to outline the economic thinking behind perfect competition and price wars:

Every retailer has to charge a mark-up to cover overheads, and faces a tension between the immediate pressures of competition and the need to stay in business. Every item sold, even at the tiniest mark-up, is better than no sale at all. Yet if the mark-ups are too thin, bankruptcy will not be far away.

In other words, perfect competition will drive down the price down to almost the marginal cost of the item.

It's always nice when you see theory in practice.