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Saturday, Nov 28, 2009
In "Digital Darwinism," Evan Schwarz predicts which online business models will prove the fittest.
Jul 20, 1999 | The Web is clearly still in its formative stages. That's why you can choose from an overwhelming number of nearly indistinguishable mega-portals, music stores, drugstores and bookshops online. In this early period of the Internet, there is still sufficient space and time for hordes of people to simultaneously develop the same ideas.
But it doesn't take much contemplation to realize that this overabundance can't last forever, that competition will arise and only the best Web businesses will make it; many will merge or die, leaving but a few to truly flourish in the long term. It's only a half-step further to compare this inevitable fallout process to a well-known theory of evolution.
Still, Evan Schwartz, author of "Webonomics," dedicated an entire book to the concept. In his latest tome, "Digital Darwinism: 7 Breakthrough Business Strategies for Surviving in the Cutthroat Web Economy," Schwartz admits: "This radical notion ... is no longer especially new or original. But the exciting development is that it is finally being put into action across many different species of enterprises."
"Digital Darwinism" is essentially an intuitive extended metaphor, arguing that only the most differentiated and appropriately evolved Web sites will survive this stage of "primordial ooze" online. To ensure that readers of his book have a chance to rise to "fittest" stature, Schwartz has appended an "executive survival guide" of strategies to each chapter.
Schwartz's latest book follows the same template as "Webonomics," with its series of essential principles for survival online. But whereas his previous work was a relatively rudimentary guide to the "rules" of the new economy (move fast, think global, offer deep information and interactivity), "Digital Darwinism" goes further, explaining why certain business models are more worthy than others -- some preferred examples are affiliate programs and dynamic pricing models. In "Webonomics," Schwartz described Peapod's grocery delivery service as his example of an online convenience service; in "Digital Darwinism," he dissects Peapod's business model and explains why it's not really a "problem-solver." The online grocery service is more expensive than buying at the store and not truly convenient, given the three hours shoppers have to stick around waiting for delivery, Schwartz argues.
But isn't this whole notion of studying the Web's evolution rather premature? Darwin had thousands of years of change to study when he attempted to explain why, for example, finches with short beaks endured; Schwartz, on the other hand, has only a few years of digital commerce to go on. And Schwartz is not simply examining change -- he is using it to suggest the strategies that should be adopted by those who want to survive continued evolution. While the book is full of insights that might be useful to entrepreneurs, it seems a bit dangerous to predict today what quirkily innovative new business models might work long term.
After all, it's a long leap from theory to practical application. It's one thing to determine why Web businesses are developing affiliate marketing programs (getting partners to sell your products for you), but it's another to predict that affiliate marketing will be one of the adaptations that survives evolution.
