3 posts and columns on Hal Varian

Mobile Payments Won’t Replace Cash or Credit for Another Decade

in Commerce on April 17 at 9:07 am PT

It will take another eight years for cash and credit cards to be replaced almost completely by smartphones, according to those interviewed by Pew Research.
a-big-fat-wad-of-money

Survey: 2020 Vision of Computing Mostly Cloudy

in Social on June 11, 2010 at 2:30 pm PT

By 2020 the transition from desktop to cloud will be largely complete and we’ll all view the former as we view the latter today–an adjunct to our primary workspace. That’s the conclusion of a new study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project that found a majority of tech-savvy folks believe they won’t be doing nearly so much work on the desktop a decade from now.
grandpasimpsoncloud

Why the Yahoogle Deal Will Likely Launch–And Be Coming to an Internet Near You on October 9

in News on September 19, 2008 at 3:08 am PT

Yesterday, BoomTown took a rather strong stand against Google and its recent aggressive efforts to defend its outsourcing deal to sell some of Yahoo’s search ads. Given that the pair have a more than 80 percent combined market share in the search business, I and many others–advertisers, publishers and state and federal regulators–are a bit nervous about further concentration of market power in one set of hands, even if they are such Googley hands. But in the interest of fairness and because I like to argue with myself, here is a counterpoint with three key reasons why Google and Yahoo might hold firm in launching the partnership, which sources said is likely to start on Oct. 9.