Re: The Wow Factor

From: David Yancey <dyancey_at_adjunction.com>
Date: Mon 14 Apr 2003 09:01:23 -0600

Before looking at the positives, let's be sure and account for the "WOWs"
that have *not* impressed very much - at least in MHO. E.g. wireless,
PDAs, home networking, and others that offer very little added value to *a
target user audience that is sufficiently large as to force a shift in
economic patterns.* I am not saying that these newer technologies aren't
WOW-some as tech innovations, merely opining that they won't be exciting
from a big-picture view until they hit the minimum level of critical user
mass, or generate significant business operating savings, or cause some
significant shift in revenues from other comms and marketing channels.

But it is easy to take shots at technology that simply hasn't matured yet;
here is the *real* story:

What has impressed me are the critical numbers, such as the continuing
growth of ecommerce even when the rest of the US economy is more or less
undecided whether to go up or take another dip in the no-growth pool. Plus
the steady growth of users in other countries, the steady shift from
slow-speed to broadband, the steady inclusion of lower-income users as the
cost of ownership and access declines. (Yes, guys and gals, it *is*
declining, in terms of total throughput and utility per expended dollar.)

Add the growing acceptance by web-using consumers of better, richer, more
interactive ad formats, coupled with the growing acceptance by mainstream
advertisers - both are promising trends for the future growth of the
web-based economy, which needs ad dollars now as much as it ever did before.

Add the steady growth of interactive niche markets and applications, like
game communities for grownups, respectably fast growth in paid content, the
unstoppable shift in travel reservations to online channels, and, many
people's favorite, the dating niche.

And, as the newest B2B PPC on the block, we are still impressed by the
emergence of the web as the best all-around "finding tool", bar none. The
big food fight between Google, Yahoo, Overture and the also-runs over about
$1 billion in paid search revenues is entertaining to watch, but the real
news is the steady shift from slow, costly, basically non-interactive
search venues like yellow pages and print directories to web-based finding
venues. The *real* online "finding biz" is actually up around $3 billion,
if anyone cares to add up the numbers. And that is just the US market...

As impressive as all these facts are, I bet they would pale in WOW-ness
next to the one we cannot gauge yet, namely, the immense shift in business
operations from conventional communications and delivery systems to
Internet-based solutions. A big chunk of this is in ecommerce, as the
larger old-economy retailers learn how to work the web. But I suggest that
there is *much* more going on in the B2B and operating trenches we simply
have no way to identify, much less measure. I confess that, though trained
in economics, and with 3-plus decades of experience in software, business
systems, and the web, I cannot put any credible number on this structural
economic change. But I am sure that 1) the underlying migration to more
interactive, less labor-intensive ways of servicing customers and managing
operations is profound; 2) it will continue to be the single most important
"new economy" development for many years to come; and 3) a large proportion
of web-based businesses that turn in solid growth and profitability over
the next few decades will be those that can help businesses cash in on the
Internet's cost -saving, customer retention, and lead acquisition potential.

The massive shift in business and marketing operations is the real news,
but the WOW that wows me the most is even more difficult to quantify: the
powerful and unceasing determination of seniors, businesspersons, and other
non-webbie, ordinary folks to learn how to use all this cumbersome stuff -
even though we *still* cannot seem to produce easily navigable websites;
easily understood eshopping practices; a truly competent and usable
operating system; digital and software components that can work together
well; a workable, a meaningful degree of "convergence"; or, the main and
continuing shame of our industry, an economically bearable and personally
controllable solution to the SPAM blizzard.

Do any others in our comfortable expert community feel the frustration of
all these non-digital-savvy millions? Do you count up the huge
discretionary income they collectively manage and wonder why we don't do a
better job online to help them? Does anyone else dare to ask what WOWs we
could create and make profits from, *if* the total jungle of technology,

connections, websites, and services we collectively provide actually had
clearly marked, more easily accessible gateways into it and easily
traversed pathways, instead of presenting normal folks with thick vines to
connect somehow, old underbrush software that no one wants to clear out,
big dark shadowy thickets of applications that seem impenetrable,
quicksand-like PCs and components that suck one down and down to technical
levels few can cope with?

What, I ask myself - and you, too - would the web - and all of our
bottom-lines - be like if we actually *invited* consumers, business
persons, and professionals onto it, instead of laying obstacles in their path?

David Yancey
http://www.ProWebguide.com
"THE place to be found"






Received on Mon Apr 14 2003 - 10:01:23 CDT