World Of Ends - a corollary
I’ve a half-formed idea that there is a natural and important corollary to Doc and David’s World of Ends thing. Too tired to do credit to this, but FWIW…
This might be little more than neat word play, or it might be something a little bigger – not too sure.
Maybe one of you can take this idea and stretch it out – see where it snaps.
This: as the Internet is truly a World of Ends, it is also, just as clearly, a World of Ands.
There is a necessary AND logic to the value growing at the Ends of the Net that is completely misunderstood by most of the legislators, regulators, CEOs and other clue-challenged entities at which the WoE piece is evidently directed.
Look at even the most viable Web-based businesses – how many of them have actually succeeded in putting bricks and mortar companies out of business? How many of them even thought, honestly, that they would?
Amazon.
Amazon doesn’t replace book or record stores.
A store that exists only in a browser simply can not replace browsing in a store.
I buy MORE books now that Amazon exists, but I’ll still spend hours mooching in bookstores – and I’m certainly not alone in this view.
AND logic is at work here – not OR. The two things are different, can co-exist, can even complement one another to their mutual benefit.
eBay – no obvious equivalent in the BAM world. A genuine ‘pure play’ company that could not have existed without the Net. So who did they displace?
Better example: Napster. Never likely to supplant HMV. Couldn’t. Didn’t want to.
Show me a set of numbers to support the argument that any online analog of a BAM business ever had a tangible, provable, negative impact on the BAM’s sales.
Look at the Napster example in the most simple terms – terms the BAM CEO should understand: real estate terms.
From the most basic point of view, an online file-trading system presents you with the potential to put your product into every middle-class living room in America (and many, many beyond). You’re getting to project parts of your storefront into every single midmarket home.
The challenge for BAMs is to figure out a simple business model to take this AND logic function and make some reasonable profit from it.
Accommodate it within your hard-product margin calculations. Deal with it by figuring out how to accrue some acceptable, fair benefit from the best distribution and marketing network you could ever possibly wish for.
Make money here AND (small incremental amounts) here. OR kill it. Your choice.
So this is a rough as heck, totally unfinished thought – but it does seem to be an absolutely natural extension to Doc & Dave’s original thesis.
I need help figuring out the rest. Which is what email is for…
This might be little more than neat word play, or it might be something a little bigger – not too sure.
Maybe one of you can take this idea and stretch it out – see where it snaps.
This: as the Internet is truly a World of Ends, it is also, just as clearly, a World of Ands.
There is a necessary AND logic to the value growing at the Ends of the Net that is completely misunderstood by most of the legislators, regulators, CEOs and other clue-challenged entities at which the WoE piece is evidently directed.
Look at even the most viable Web-based businesses – how many of them have actually succeeded in putting bricks and mortar companies out of business? How many of them even thought, honestly, that they would?
Amazon.
Amazon doesn’t replace book or record stores.
A store that exists only in a browser simply can not replace browsing in a store.
I buy MORE books now that Amazon exists, but I’ll still spend hours mooching in bookstores – and I’m certainly not alone in this view.
AND logic is at work here – not OR. The two things are different, can co-exist, can even complement one another to their mutual benefit.
eBay – no obvious equivalent in the BAM world. A genuine ‘pure play’ company that could not have existed without the Net. So who did they displace?
Better example: Napster. Never likely to supplant HMV. Couldn’t. Didn’t want to.
Show me a set of numbers to support the argument that any online analog of a BAM business ever had a tangible, provable, negative impact on the BAM’s sales.
Look at the Napster example in the most simple terms – terms the BAM CEO should understand: real estate terms.
From the most basic point of view, an online file-trading system presents you with the potential to put your product into every middle-class living room in America (and many, many beyond). You’re getting to project parts of your storefront into every single midmarket home.
The challenge for BAMs is to figure out a simple business model to take this AND logic function and make some reasonable profit from it.
Accommodate it within your hard-product margin calculations. Deal with it by figuring out how to accrue some acceptable, fair benefit from the best distribution and marketing network you could ever possibly wish for.
Make money here AND (small incremental amounts) here. OR kill it. Your choice.
So this is a rough as heck, totally unfinished thought – but it does seem to be an absolutely natural extension to Doc & Dave’s original thesis.
I need help figuring out the rest. Which is what email is for…
