Great article!
I really, really like item #9 and item #10 !!!!
<< #9 More content sites will begin charging admission.
Just two years ago, the very idea of charging a subscription price to enter a website, or pay-for-content, was considered ludicrous. After all, the net was "Born to be FREE," they sang.
But that will change in 1999. The internet is growing up, having evolved from its open, laid-back, cool-site-of-the-day attitude to where people are now actually willing to pay for content that is high quality and sufficiently differentiated such that they can't get it elsewhere -- faster, cheaper or more conveniently.
While we can only see a few success stories today, such as The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition and the Street.com, more will merge in 1999.
The successful ones will realize that the subscription model works only if your information is unique and your target audience is willing to pay for it.
#10 e-Mail, while remaining the "killer app" online, will also become a big headache.
e-mail makes it easier than ever before for people to down-load their thoughts, questions and concerns -- in almost stream-of-consciousness form. As a result, online businesses will have to struggle to keep up with an ever growing torrent of digital messages from internal employees, customers, clients, consultants, distributors, suppliers and others.
e-mails create an urgency -- they demand to be answered.
Look for the emergence of new filtering, storage and retrieval technology to help deal with this e-mail avalanche.>>
From_Verbier... |
