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Word of
the Week
June
6, 2000
Internet Speed
There is a
lot of talk about 'Internet Time'. This refers to the speed at
which new Internet companies, services and capabilities are growing.
Seem new companies and services are popping up left and right.
Current logic is that the first to market will be the winners.
This has created a stream of companies rushing to market with
barely an idea and often-poor products and services.
What I am
seeing is a lot of great new technology but no one to use it.
Part of the issue here is that many of the efficiencies being
talked about will not come to fruit until there is a critical
mass of users participating. This will take much longer than just
coming up with a great new widget regardless of the cost saving
potential. The big question is will new companies be able to hold
on long enough for that mass adaptation. Some will and many will
not.
Kind of like
when I bought my son his first bike. I thought.. he's big enough…
bike riding is fun…. this is will be great. After struggling to
get him riding, it turns out he just wasn't ready. After the bike
collected some dust for a while, the time came when he was ready.
He learned to ride quickly, loved it and has steadily moved to
bigger better bikes. Like with the Internet, the user will decide
when he or she is ready, not the promoter or salesman.
Finely some
of the pundits are conceding that existing Brick and Mortar companies
with strong customer relationships may be the ones in position
to get new technologies into the hands of users. As much as technology
will change our lives the bottom line is we are humans. Society
and business is built on relationships built over time and this
will continue.
The Internet
has made instant information and cost saving technologies available
at a dramatic pace. The potential of some of the new technologies
are tremendous. But I don't see the industry or relationships
changing over night. There will be a long process of adaptation
for all of us, and individual companies will do so on their own
time. We have developed enough new technology and potential services
in the last 4 years to keep us busy implementing them for the
next ten…. if we stopped coming up with new ones today. Considering
technology, speed, and ideas are growing daily, the opportunities
abound.
If we could
only sell our ideas as fast as we came up with them.
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