Old Categories Breaking Down
by petermeIn our forthcoming book, Subject to Change, we close with a chapter titled “An Uncertain World,” about how the approaches we suggest will help businesses manage no matter what comes at them. In it, there’s this passage:
One key opportunity driven by this uncertainty is how the old categories will break down. David Weinberger discusses these trends and their implications in his excellent book, Everything Is Miscellaneous. Though the book is ostensibly about the nature of information in a digital world, the forces underlying that miscellany pervade all aspects of society. Google and Yahoo!, once technology companies, are now media players, and their advertising-based business models mean they compete more with Los Angeles and New York than their Silicon Valley brethren. Apple began as a computer company, but has morphed into a consumer electronics company (iPod, iPhone, Apple TV) and the third largest music retailer in the United States, which means its competitors are not only HP, Dell, and Toshiba, but also Sony, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy.
Oh, the perils of book publishing! Word is coming out that Apple is now the premier music retailer in the country, having surpassed Wal-mart and Best Buy.
What industry are you in, again? Who are your competitors, really?
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April 3rd, 2008 at 10:16 am
No longer number 3.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080402-apple-passes-wal-mart-now-1-music-retailer-in-us.html
April 4th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Peter,
you raise an interesting point. I think the main challenge is that when businesses struggle to understand the marketplace, most are too focused on themselves and their competitors. This makes it hard to understand how technology companies could become a media company.
On the other hand when your business logic is based on your customers and the value you provide them, it becomes obvious why they have changed: businesses create value for customers through media and solutions and not with technology.
Bernhard