Thread: The Future Of Online Business

Be better.
Be different.

Too general a term.

You may ask about online stores, or social media sites, or content-based media sites, to be more specific.

Being online is just a medium. A very powerful medium, granted but still a medium.
Like saying there are too many corner shops or chinese restaurants or market stalls... their too saturated... what's the future of them?
Well.... quite bright actually.

It's not that a business is "online" but whether that business actually produces something of value in high demand.

Having said that... you're probably really asking "which online businesses are too saturated to create a meaningful fastlane venture?"
My answer to that is to reiterate what AndrewC has said. "Be better / Be Different"

I remember years ago... maybe about 2005 a fellow came out with "Day Job Killer" and the approach was completely and utterly different to any other approach at the time. The content was new, but not that revolutionary, yet because it was a fresh and disruptive style - before Facebook or Twitter or social networking was around - it caused quite a buzz and made a killing.

This can still be done today... but the approach has changed. Now its webinar delivery and product launches, with buzz created on social networks. These are just channels - your product still has to have value for someone to want to buy it.

Contrast this to Christine Clayfield's "From Newbie to Millionaire" which is a slowburner online method.... but I think just as effective. I think it would be better to take your strengths and personality and work on proving something small first for the same type of product demand. If you can do that, then you can use the internet to scale to other audiences.

I think it doesn't matter if you have a lot of competitors around the block as long as you provide great service to your customers that's what matters nowadays. Online shops comes and go, but if you provide great service I'm sure you'll survive and surpass all your competitors.

Online will be even more embedded in our lives. The connection between on/offline will be big, people/businesses using online/social media/mobile. Enabling all kinds of electronics/appliances in an even more connected world will bring much opportunity. Online itself is so overwhelming, people will be always hungry for ways to get relevant, specific information suited for them.

Originally Posted by rdogg12794

Anyone can have a website up and running within a few days

I can't even write code and I can have one up in a matter of hours.

The internet has only just "begun", relative to other technologies and there definitely is a lot of room for further value creation ahead. We are living in the period of the internet gold rush, we are lucky enough to be at the right time to take advantage of this level playing field before eventually big players start really dominating the markets and there is possibly no further value that can be created. Since that should take about a 100 years more, you can safely work towards providing value to people through this medium for the rest of your life. It will only continue to grow. Tommorows Googles and Apples of the world are already in the making.

Internet and "online" is not going anywhere, it's a big part of the future.

Maybe you're looking for what's next? Mobile and phone calls. Businesses are going to be going backwards in the next years. Backwards to phone calls and conversations. Businesses will start to realize again that a phone call is worth more than 5 fields including that phone number. We can coin it, "interactive marketing", where people talk to people and have dialogue. Quality > quantity.

The basics will stay similar. Not the same but similar. The internet and all the different businesses that are online will evolve. The thing is to allow yourself to evolve with them. Always be in the "student mode". Always keep learning and evolve. Discarding something just because everybody are doing it is not the right way.It's like telling people to open up a record store just because the competition online is too much for them. You should rather focus on keeping your business one level higher than the competitors (better service,better quality). If you have quality,demand and a good plan then your business should do well.