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The Internet land grab is over. During the mid-to-late '90s, the business, financial and marketing powerhouses realised the potential of the Internet, and hurredly blazed a path to the twin mantras of "e-commerce" and "Initial Public Offering". The Global Village soon became the Global Marketplace.
Remarkably, some companies succeeded in their goal, but for each conglomerate coasting along the so-called Superhighway, there are a multitude more languishing upon the hard shoulder, having run out of petrol (that'll be the high burn rate, then). Many of the companies that have succeded, have done so modestly, having kept their feet on the ground, they made sure that what they brought to the Internet had a working business model, and more often than not, they had been in business before the Internet had gone supernova.
So what lessons have been learnt from the successes and failures of the past? Well, funkygamer can see that style over substance hardly ever works, take boo.com for example. Although the company had big dreams that funkygamer salutes, there was also a disregard for the typical Internet user, by using leading (read : bleeding) edge technology, and ignoring Netscape and Mac users, boo.com was making itself unuseable by a large proportion of the Internet community. No matter if your web site is at the forefront of design and technology, if your target audience does not have the patince to download even your home page, you know your site is in trouble.
How about a success? Lets take lastminute.com for example. Despite the relative business inexperience of it's founders, lastminute.com is about to break even. This is no mean feat following the dramatic collapse of confidence in e-commerce sites. By keeping to a lean burn-rate, using easy to navigate design aesthetics, and refusing to spend millions on scattergun advertising, lastminute.com can be proud of what is has acheived. Though it was part of the initial land grab, lastminute.com has weathered the storm and can now look forward to leveraging its' brand value on the next generation of Internet shoppers.
funkygamer looks back at the Internet boom with fond memories, but now we must see that mistakes are not repeated, but learnt from, and that success we have seen is used as a foundation to be built upon.
Remarkably, some companies succeeded in their goal, but for each conglomerate coasting along the so-called Superhighway, there are a multitude more languishing upon the hard shoulder, having run out of petrol (that'll be the high burn rate, then). Many of the companies that have succeded, have done so modestly, having kept their feet on the ground, they made sure that what they brought to the Internet had a working business model, and more often than not, they had been in business before the Internet had gone supernova.
So what lessons have been learnt from the successes and failures of the past? Well, funkygamer can see that style over substance hardly ever works, take boo.com for example. Although the company had big dreams that funkygamer salutes, there was also a disregard for the typical Internet user, by using leading (read : bleeding) edge technology, and ignoring Netscape and Mac users, boo.com was making itself unuseable by a large proportion of the Internet community. No matter if your web site is at the forefront of design and technology, if your target audience does not have the patince to download even your home page, you know your site is in trouble.
How about a success? Lets take lastminute.com for example. Despite the relative business inexperience of it's founders, lastminute.com is about to break even. This is no mean feat following the dramatic collapse of confidence in e-commerce sites. By keeping to a lean burn-rate, using easy to navigate design aesthetics, and refusing to spend millions on scattergun advertising, lastminute.com can be proud of what is has acheived. Though it was part of the initial land grab, lastminute.com has weathered the storm and can now look forward to leveraging its' brand value on the next generation of Internet shoppers.
funkygamer looks back at the Internet boom with fond memories, but now we must see that mistakes are not repeated, but learnt from, and that success we have seen is used as a foundation to be built upon.
Oh, and I don't like Dabs. Their site is appalling and their customer services is worse. But, I don't know any other monitor shops.
Because:
a) They're cheap
b) They don't aim to make money out of the Internet. Setting up a cheap mail order shop is a really good idea, I just really dislike, as FG said, people like Boo/Amazon & friends.
a) They're cheap
b) They don't aim to make money out of the Internet. Setting up a cheap mail order shop is a really good idea, I just really dislike, as FG said, people like Boo/Amazon & friends.
Turbonutter wrote:
> It was a .net cover. Not that I buy that trash.
>
> Good riddence to bad rubbish is what I say. The Internet is one of the
> greatest single entities on earth in my opinion, and I've never
> visited a commercial site in my life - well, apart from SR, but I was
> shopping with them waay before the Internet revolution happened.
>
For somebody who frequently posts links to commercial sites such as dabs and overclockers, I really wonder how you can make such claims. :)
-G
> It was a .net cover. Not that I buy that trash.
>
> Good riddence to bad rubbish is what I say. The Internet is one of the
> greatest single entities on earth in my opinion, and I've never
> visited a commercial site in my life - well, apart from SR, but I was
> shopping with them waay before the Internet revolution happened.
>
For somebody who frequently posts links to commercial sites such as dabs and overclockers, I really wonder how you can make such claims. :)
-G
It was a .net cover. Not that I buy that trash.
Good riddence to bad rubbish is what I say. The Internet is one of the greatest single entities on earth in my opinion, and I've never visited a commercial site in my life - well, apart from SR, but I was shopping with them waay before the Internet revolution happened.
And I thoroughly agree about substance over style. I hear good things about my website by people that chance upon it, and it certainly ain't the design that attracts people.
So, sod off to companies who see the Internet as electronic gold, and let's get back to what the Internet was built for, IE, sharing files, communicating and Linux documentation.
Good riddence to bad rubbish is what I say. The Internet is one of the greatest single entities on earth in my opinion, and I've never visited a commercial site in my life - well, apart from SR, but I was shopping with them waay before the Internet revolution happened.
And I thoroughly agree about substance over style. I hear good things about my website by people that chance upon it, and it certainly ain't the design that attracts people.
So, sod off to companies who see the Internet as electronic gold, and let's get back to what the Internet was built for, IE, sharing files, communicating and Linux documentation.
funkygamer wrote:
> Damn, that title should be "The Internet is dead, long live the
> Internet" - that'll learn me!
Mmmm.. I've seen that headline before? Sometime last month... it'll come to me
> Damn, that title should be "The Internet is dead, long live the
> Internet" - that'll learn me!
Mmmm.. I've seen that headline before? Sometime last month... it'll come to me
The Internet land grab is over. During the mid-to-late '90s, the business, financial and marketing powerhouses realised the potential of the Internet, and hurredly blazed a path to the twin mantras of "e-commerce" and "Initial Public Offering". The Global Village soon became the Global Marketplace.
Remarkably, some companies succeeded in their goal, but for each conglomerate coasting along the so-called Superhighway, there are a multitude more languishing upon the hard shoulder, having run out of petrol (that'll be the high burn rate, then). Many of the companies that have succeded, have done so modestly, having kept their feet on the ground, they made sure that what they brought to the Internet had a working business model, and more often than not, they had been in business before the Internet had gone supernova.
So what lessons have been learnt from the successes and failures of the past? Well, funkygamer can see that style over substance hardly ever works, take boo.com for example. Although the company had big dreams that funkygamer salutes, there was also a disregard for the typical Internet user, by using leading (read : bleeding) edge technology, and ignoring Netscape and Mac users, boo.com was making itself unuseable by a large proportion of the Internet community. No matter if your web site is at the forefront of design and technology, if your target audience does not have the patince to download even your home page, you know your site is in trouble.
How about a success? Lets take lastminute.com for example. Despite the relative business inexperience of it's founders, lastminute.com is about to break even. This is no mean feat following the dramatic collapse of confidence in e-commerce sites. By keeping to a lean burn-rate, using easy to navigate design aesthetics, and refusing to spend millions on scattergun advertising, lastminute.com can be proud of what is has acheived. Though it was part of the initial land grab, lastminute.com has weathered the storm and can now look forward to leveraging its' brand value on the next generation of Internet shoppers.
funkygamer looks back at the Internet boom with fond memories, but now we must see that mistakes are not repeated, but learnt from, and that success we have seen is used as a foundation to be built upon.
Remarkably, some companies succeeded in their goal, but for each conglomerate coasting along the so-called Superhighway, there are a multitude more languishing upon the hard shoulder, having run out of petrol (that'll be the high burn rate, then). Many of the companies that have succeded, have done so modestly, having kept their feet on the ground, they made sure that what they brought to the Internet had a working business model, and more often than not, they had been in business before the Internet had gone supernova.
So what lessons have been learnt from the successes and failures of the past? Well, funkygamer can see that style over substance hardly ever works, take boo.com for example. Although the company had big dreams that funkygamer salutes, there was also a disregard for the typical Internet user, by using leading (read : bleeding) edge technology, and ignoring Netscape and Mac users, boo.com was making itself unuseable by a large proportion of the Internet community. No matter if your web site is at the forefront of design and technology, if your target audience does not have the patince to download even your home page, you know your site is in trouble.
How about a success? Lets take lastminute.com for example. Despite the relative business inexperience of it's founders, lastminute.com is about to break even. This is no mean feat following the dramatic collapse of confidence in e-commerce sites. By keeping to a lean burn-rate, using easy to navigate design aesthetics, and refusing to spend millions on scattergun advertising, lastminute.com can be proud of what is has acheived. Though it was part of the initial land grab, lastminute.com has weathered the storm and can now look forward to leveraging its' brand value on the next generation of Internet shoppers.
funkygamer looks back at the Internet boom with fond memories, but now we must see that mistakes are not repeated, but learnt from, and that success we have seen is used as a foundation to be built upon.