Cafe Hayek

Stealth Site

I'm sure that officials at the WTO are not happy that, when you google "GATT," this site tops the list of results.  These officials also must be disturbed by the site's URL: http://www.gatt.org/

By the way, here's the real WTO website -- not the nest of half-truths and foolishness that is "gatt.org"

Hazlett on the Global Village

No one is better informed -- and wiser -- about the institutions and economics of modern communications technologies and cyberspace than is my colleague Tom Hazlett.  His essay in today's Financial Times is a wonderful read.  Here's his concluding paragraph:

The point is not that “closed” beats “open,” but that capitalism accommodates both. Rules need not be changed to embrace the revolution. Markets thrust revolutions upon us, boldly and magnificently, far more often than we care to remember.

Indeed.

Steve and Al

Holman Jenkins finds it strange that Al Gore is the protector of Steve Jobs:

We can only wonder what Al Gore is making of his experience as the No. 1 defender of today's No. 1 backdating miscreant.

Mr. Gore, an Apple director, was a member of the special two-man committee that investigated and exonerated Steve Jobs in the backdating matter. By now, we presume he is well-versed in what backdating is and isn't. But how easily Mr. Gore -- the scourge of Big Pharma, etc. -- could have been the one braying about greed, CEO theft, the defrauding of shareholders.

I didn't know that Gore was half of the committee. It puts this moment from yesterday's keynote address into a whole new light:

10:23am - "I can double-tap and it'll zoom in -- I can make this text bigger if I want to, and there it is. Isn't this cool? There is the New York Times. Unbelievable. You can look at multiple web pages as well, I just push this button in the corner, shrinks it down, and I can add a new page. Let's go to Amazon. I like looking at what DVDs are selling -- I like especially when Disney DVDs are on top."

10:24am - Page is loading, albeit a bit slowly. "And here we are, and there's a section over here, and these are the top sellers. Oh look, Al's "An Inconvenient Truth" is number one. Now I can go back to the NYT if I want, I can get rid of these by just hitting the X." Looks a bit like the UIQ browser, but much more slick.

When he just happened to check out DVD's and just happened to find Al's DVD (love that first name basis!), I thought he was pandering to the environmentalist in all of us to show how he's a good  guy. But no. It's was a little thank you to Al. I wonder if Gore was happy to see his DVD touted or whether he cringed.

Feedback, please

Over the last week, we've made four changes to Cafe Hayek. We've put in a search tool from BlogBar. We've added a box for most popular links from MyBlogLog. We put in a radio from MyBlogTunes for playing EconTalk. I've just added Snap to the page. Snap lets you roll over any link and get a little preview before you click through.

Do you like these features? Hate them? Do you use them? Do they work? Do they annoy you? Please comment and let us know.

The Long Tail

Chris Anderson's new book, The Long Tail, argues that the low inventory and distribution costs for the internet (Amazon, iTunes, etc) allow small niche items to thrive in a way that's impossible in a bricks and mortar world. An item that might sell a few times a month isn't viable for taking up shelf space. But it is viable for iTunes or Amazon and because there are a  lot of these items (the long tail), they can make a serious contribution to the bottom line.

He also has a lot of interesting insights into what he calls the democratization of production—think blogging and wikipedia. Check out the video in this post at his blog.