Things go in cycles. We all know that – from the dredging up of retro fashions, the inheritance of music, to the rapid cyclical nature of business; in particular online business. Everything seems to follow the same path.
As all tech believers know, when man invented the web: Saviour of the Geeks, Creator of Unnecessary Job Titles and Deliverer of LOLCats, like the Garden of Eden, at first things went jolly well – we all lived in peace, harmony and believed in universal access, freedom of information, net neutrality, and that when given the choice of publicising the bare truth on Wikipedia, we (from celebrities and companies to politicians and lobbying groups) of course would not seek to alter that... oh yes. Of course, our lovely new Netopia began to change to reflect the true realities of our world – i.e. capitalism.
Yet, even so – the level of change from open platforms, open source, open access mentality of the early days to the competitive, closed, fixed business model trend we now see, surprises me. When AOL (or America Online as it was then) first presented the world with the idea of a digital gated community – it was a unique step.... Read more
Tagged 'business strategy' 
Remember AOL! The Four Rules of Web Success
Posted by Brant Emery on January 2nd, 2013 at 11:03 am
