[MIT Sloan]

15.566:
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AS AN INTEGRATING FORCE IN MANUFACTURING

SPRING 1998


FIREFLY NETWORK, INC. CASE


[Stanford GSB] This case can be downloaded from the Web: Firefly Network, Inc. Prepared by Jean-Claude Charlet (MBA '98) under the supervision of Professor Erik Brynjolfsson, Stanford Graduate School of Business.


Background Materials

Technology Note: Collaborative Filterning. Prepared by Jean-Claude Charlet (MBA '98) under the supervision of Professor Erik Brynjolfsson, Stanford Graduate School of Business.


Case Preparation Questions

Please visit the above sites on the web. As you prepare the Firefly case, address the following questions as these will form, in part, the basis for our class discussions.

  1. What are the business models available to Firefly?
  2. What is the revenue model corresponding to each of the options you identified above? (You may provide a combined answer for Questions 1 and 2)
  3. Which business model is most likely to be successful for Firefly? Be specific, and justify your answer.
  4. How do tools like Firefly's affect markets on the web?
  5. What is the significance of the Open Profiling Standard for Web-based markets?
  6. What privacy issues are raised by website personalization?