The weird WWW continues
Back when we were first introduced, about twenty years ago, it was called the World Wide Web. Now it would be better described as the Weird Wonderful World that we live in.
It is a continuously and rapidly changing world that affects us all every day. From the time we wake up to check e-mail and the weather on our smart phones, staying connected all day for work and play, until watching old movies or TV series on Netflix before bed. The internet has become as much a part of the infrastructure we take for granted as traffic lights and coffee shops.
But taking it entirely for granted is not a good idea, since it is a continuously changing infrastructure. Suddenly, the most popular app is not available on your Blackberry and the old accounting software is not compatible with Windows 10. You’re in danger of going obsolete yourself if you don’t continually replace or upgrade devices and software. Suppliers are constantly developing products and services to win new customers and build attraction to their brand. Marketing gurus find ways to make them irresistible and impossible to ignore.
But the suppliers also live in this challenging world without control over events. In the news again today, we learn that Yahoo continues to search for a strategy that will allow them to survive. Remember them? The original Web portal that asked “Do you Yahoo?” Now we are all Googling and Facebooking instead of Yahooing. What was once creative and exciting, now seems old-fashioned and obsolete.
Even more recent successes, the so-called unicorns that grew rapidly from zero to billion dollar valuations, are not guaranteed longevity. Consider Twitter. Another weird concept launched in 2006 that caught on and has grown to 320 million active users. The company went public just over two years ago before it was even generating any significant revenue. Enthusiastic fans drove the first day share price to $44.00 for a valuation of $31 billion and it rose as high as $69.00 in early 2014. That little bluebird is now fluttering under $18.00 and management is saying “We have a ton of work to do in crafting the message to the world what Twitter really is and how you can use it” (FP, 18-02-2016).
This weird and wonderful world continues and we still cannot understand or explain it.
Your Uncle Ralph, Del Chatterson
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