The Internet As A Whole Cornered?

[interactive]

I've come up with a few rather innovative ideas lately. But as a whole, am I the only one who feels that somewhere around 90% of the internet related markets, from hosting to e-Commerce, have been cornered and controled by larger companies?

It's, in some ways, rather depressing. All to blame to the .com burst back in the mid to late 90's. Even after the fall out.

Is the internet as a whole, in your opinion, flooded?

Please feel free to express your opinions.

[Andrew]

Hi Robert,

I wouldnt say the market is cornered. Hell, considering the number of people who arent yet online (globally) that is, I think the market has yet to come anywhere near mature.

The bubble has burst - but the actual # of users and $'s transacted have increased steadily.

Dont concede the market yet....theres still a long way to go

[vaserv]

Also people are looking to move to higher powered accounts so there will always be people upgrading. Also smaller companies (generally) provide better custom service and as such people do prefer them

Rus

[GordonH]

I agree with you Robert.

If I was launching my business today it would not get as large as it is because the bigger companies have all the marketing money and these days its marketing money that brings in customers if you need large volume.

If you think about it 2 years ago people would drill down through several pages of search engine results to find a supplier.
These days they rarely go past the top few.
(If you advertise on overture you will see this trend).

I think the market for hosting services is maturing.
Small operations who can take more risks with what they will allow users to do on servers (IRC, processor hogging applications) will probably do OK as small businesses but I cant see any web hosting business launched this year making it into the top 100 hosting companies without massive financial backing from outside.
You would need a blank cheque from the bank if you wanted to break the big players hold.

Gordon

[theog]

It is plain crazy to start a company selling ALL books. But if you can get into a niche selling books that Amazon, BN or other large companies do not sell, then you can make it. I specialize in niche markets on various levels and can say it is worth the time and money.

Large companies also have a problem with keeping in tune with markets (ear to the street). As a smaller company, you could add a product a lot faster than say Wal-Mart.

Even if you look how the mom and pop stores around America are dealing with Wal-Mart stores. Mom and pop stores understand they have to offer something WalMart does not. Same thing on the internet.

Of course you always have to monitor the big guys and stay one step ahead of them.

The other part to this is marketing. The days of "put it up and they will come" is OVER. Remember the old days when people would send out e-mails once a new site was up... or contained a nice flash bit? There are so many new sites now, people don't even bother.

You have to market to get traffic. I visit the same sites over and over. If I jump from one board I'll start on another one... but I have a limit.

Then you have to build customer loyalty and trust. One way I do this is by offering 24 hour shipping on days post office open. If I don't ship in 24 hours I refund all shipping cost.

Alot of arguments back and forth, but the internet is no where near cornered.

[Rincewind]

Oh there's plenty room on the internet for new starts. I'm currently working with some customers to develope new business that are total new. That is, no direct competition. You just need to think, "What do the users want?" and then work out how you can supply that want.

However. Some sectors of the web have become very cowded (e.g. hosting or domain names). Others are very heavly dominated by big biz (e.g. Operating systems). But that doesn't mean you can't break into those sectors. You just need a product that will differenciate you form the other players. If that difference is something consumers want then you will grow.

[WH-Coach]

Technology is growing up - period. There was a neat commentary on this on cnbc a while back where the analyst basically said that tech is starting to turn more traditional in the sense of being concerned with the bottom line, more so that the next cool innovation. With that concern comes a certain amount of professionalism and hence, potential customers are less willing to be creative with their purchases (I would argue they never were creative).

If one is to start, start professional. Plan for the bottom line, set targets, and meet them. Internet business need to start doing business in the "real " world.

[LiftNw8]

I definitely don't think that the whole market is cornered on the internet and I feel that there is plenty of room for even small hosting companies to make there fair share of dollars, primarily because they offer the one thing that the big boys can't, personal service.

[GordonH]

Yes, but if you rely on that you may not be able to get big enough to be self sustaining in the long term. You need to reacjh a sixe where you can afford real staff or you will go mad working 18 hour days and not getting a holiday.

[LiftNw8]

Well that is correct, and I do intend on growing to a point where I don't have to worry about all of those incindental things, but by the same token I intend on keeping that small company feel by seeing to it that the personal service is always there. After all gotta have something to set oneself apart.

[GordonH]

We are having the same debate over on WHT. Here is what I sais there:

Anyway, I think you need to be very firm with customers.
They have a contract with you to provide a certain service and you shoul dnto try to provide more than that or they will start taking liberties.
I say that from personal experience.
Customers I have gone the second mile for have tended to turn round and bite when I have said no to some other bit of work on their account.
I think you cna be more flexible if you have a small number of customers, but to grow larger you do need to stick to the service as per contract.
Thats my feeling anyway.
At least this way I can be sure the service will be reliable.
Inflexible - but reliable.
Maybe that should be my new tag line.

[LiftNw8]

I would agree that once you set something you have to stick with it and of course you cannot let your customers think you to be a push over and that you will continuously bend over backwards, I just intend to offer a more personalized service, as I grow the business, I don't want to give a big corporate cold shoulder kind of feel.

[markcastle]

Maybe 90% of current internet related markets have been cornered, but as has always happened and undoubtedly (IMHO) will always happen there will always be new ways of doing things and new ways to take major parts of each of these markets away from the incumbents. Take RS for example.... not many existing hosts saw them coming at the time - they looked at the business in a pretty unique way (at the time) and exploded into it.