Conference proceedings of THIRD GENERATION WEB: BEYOND CONVENTIONAL INTERNET PUBLISHING
- Areas of key focus which were re-iterated through the day included:
Rôle of traditional players
- Traditional players certainly have a rôle to play in this new market, whether setting up an independent service or bringing their market knowledge to bear on a joint venture relationship
- Key skills demonstrated by traditional players include editorial talents and the ability to identify and target a niche audience
- Web site creators should bear in mind that offering a service is as much about publishing as it is about retail skills
- It is important that those working in traditional media stop being scared of the technology as they are often reaching out to the same audience with the same message but through a different channel.
- Traditional players are also focused on their existing offline presence, but must overcome their legacy systems and formulate a brand proposition to go online effectively
- Online businesses perform to the same commercial dynamics as any other business: the same issues affect traditional businesses without huge venture capitalist backing.
- Existing assets must be utilised effectively, exploiting content, copyright, brands and the skills-base of staff members.
- Ensure the transfer of skills across media and organisational restructures (this is one of the most difficult elements to achieve).
- There must be a ruthless re-focus of the traditional business. Print/legacy businesses need to be broken up and re-built, and the company must ensure that the customer is happy with the new service. This is a tall order, but traditional players have the content and customers at their disposal, unlike start-ups.
Keys to success
- Speed: there is currently a huge race on to capture market share in the business-to-business environment;
- Technology: technical understanding is vital amongst the senior management of an internet venture; Technology is the factor that always delays launches and lets down new businesses
- Simplicity: ensure that users can easily appreciate the value of the service
- Functionality: there must be speed, simplicity, clear navigation and consistent routing.
- Focus: players must be completely focused on their objectives and the new emergent paradigms in order to build a business successfully
- The proposition should be kept pure (a company like Amazon for example is very much in danger of losing its focus by diversifying into music and games products)
- Commitment to the new paradigm: no venture should be undertaken in a half hearted manner
- Understanding internet business models
- Winning in the internet space will be about mindshare rather than location (as in traditional retail): it is necessary to be in the right part of users? heads
- Traditional media skills must be used alongside retail and technical skills
Pan-European and global operations
- Being pan-European at the moment is very fashionable at the moment, although there are a number of issues to consider which do not have to be taken into account with an amorphous nation such as the US. The key issues are:
- European players should not feel that it is too late to enter this market successfully: there is still time to capture market share
- European markets are smaller and differ considerably from country to country. This means it is easy to get the offering wrong in these national markets
- Some differences are easy to address, such as programming th
* Multiple languages (and therefore multi-lingual customer services)
* Multiple currencies
* Pan -European shipping (there is as yet no service like UPS which will ship across the whole region)
* Localised merchandising, marketing and promotions
* Cross country selling
* Cross cultural management
* Telecoms and PC costs/penetration levels
Price:
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May 12, 2003
n/a pages
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Keywords: Peer-to-peer (P2P) Forecast
