Multi-sided reading

Unusually for me, I’ve been reading three books – normally it’s strictly one at a time. One (a few pages late at night) is Louise Fresco’s [amazon_link id=”0691163871″ target=”_blank” ]Hamburgers in Paradise: The Stories Behind the Food We Eat.[/amazon_link] It’s a beautiful book and luckily lends itself to dipping in, with information, anecdotes, culture, economics. I’m enjoying very much, in bite-size nuggets.

[amazon_image id=”0691163871″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Hamburgers in Paradise: The Stories behind the Food We Eat[/amazon_image]

Another, also too bulky to carry round on the Tube, is the physical version of David Evans’ [amazon_link id=”1468102729″ target=”_blank” ]Platform Economics: Essays on Multi-Sided Businesses[/amazon_link] – there is a free online version. This is a very clear introduction to the economic models, but the book is now somewhat out of date despite being published as recently as 2011. Evans has a new book out with Richard Schmalensee, [amazon_link id=”1633691721″ target=”_blank” ]The Matchmakers: The New Economics of Multisided Platforms[/amazon_link], due out in May.

[amazon_image id=”1468102729″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Platform Economics: Essays on Multi-Sided Businesses[/amazon_image]  [amazon_image id=”1633691721″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Matchmakers: The New Economics of Multisided Platforms[/amazon_image]

The third is a proof copy of another book on platforms, [amazon_link id=”0393249131″ target=”_blank” ]Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy and How to Make Them Work for You[/amazon_link] by Geoffrey Parker, Marshall Van Alstyne and Sangeet Paul Choudary. It’s out in April so I’ll have to hold off reviewing this one, which is more of a business ‘how too’ book than one for economists, but is in the vein of that classic [amazon_link id=”087584863X” target=”_blank” ]Information Rules[/amazon_link] by Varian and Shapiro in setting out (for the layperson) the economics behind the business advice.

[amazon_image id=”0393249131″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets are Transforming the Economy–and How to Make Them Work for You[/amazon_image]