The digital media landscape and 4 evolving business models
When people complain about how technology, especially the Internet, kills jobs, they couldn’t be doing a better job of announcing the fact that they don’t get it. Beginning with cavemen and up to the present, each new advancement brought better jobs and lives for all of us. We never deliberately stop innovating just to keep old jobs. Some jobs exist without enough qualified people to fill them. For example, there are many new jobs building high speed robots, tablets and microprocessors etc. There are many jobs for people with internet advertising skills; in many cases, more jobs than qualified people. The pyramids were built with paid labor, not slaves, before the invention of the wheel. Would they have complained about the damn wheel – “this is going to kill the job – much better for moving heavy stone slabs by hand, slowly!” Maybe some would have said that, but as soon as someone thought of putting together 4 wheels, the game changed and suddenly there are a lot of great new jobs that didn’t exist before.
In the same way, those who embrace the newest technology will find endless jobs and, more importantly, endless new opportunities to become new business owners. Can’t you think of a good one? Well here are 4 new business models that didn’t exist before the internet and are now the foundation for great business and jobs in the future:
1. Stores without buildings, products or warehouses (perfect for people with big dreams but only a small amount of funds to get started)In the past, to get into retail, you needed to buy or lease a store and then source, invent and/or manufacture products, buy licenses, invest in warehousing, shipping and distribution. Now, just build and market a website. Other companies white label their products and ship them with their custom labeling. They provide the page on their website. This model means that some small manufacturer of quality goods, using local labor, can now reach a global market. It means that a marketing-focused entrepreneur can build a business that can scale, creating jobs locally. Customers get the best products, the best shopping experience, and the lowest prices, while finding what they need, can use, and wouldn’t normally find or pay for.
2. Eat cake and eat it too (by partnering with your competitors). You help a great brand to sell their products. Affiliate marketers, whose only strength is driving and converting internet traffic, not only make a living from this model, but this can be extended to a Miracle on 34th street in a way (Macy’s Santa feels like a customer of competitor Gimbels.) He assumes that he is in competition with a similar supplier and knows that buyers are likely to buy and compare. Why not have an affiliate sales relationship with them to make it easier for customers to do their comparison shopping from your site and now they pay you if they buy from you OR your competition? A button on your website makes it easier for the customer to go where they were going anyway.
3. Put your turnstile in front of the entrance to other people’s shops– this is the ultimate position for any internet marketer. Go to any website but go to them through my search engine. Go to any site in a vertical, but do it through my website, comparison shopping engine, or review portal. No need for content, no need for anything other than a commitment to making life easier for customers. This rush of people passing through your turnstile can be monetized in a number of ways: show them ads, charge them with a monthly subscription, offer them the opportunity to purchase something unique, or send them to someone else’s turnstile.
4. Rock Paper Scissors– Platforms, content, and distribution are always locked in a rock-paper-scissors battle for supremacy. Look at mobile – once this new platform was established, there was a content void to fill it. Suddenly, there are responsive websites and apps (websites programmed to fit the screen size and computing power of a mobile device) that not only allow mobile users to have a better overall user experience, but also do the things you can do when you’re away from home and not connected to a PC. Once there was a tablet with content, carriers fought for control: streaming services fought each other for control of the platform and content…suddenly it was all about Verizon vs. AT&T then together against Cable then Cable vs. non-traditional videos like YouTube and Hulu, then online services against Amazon, Apple, Roku and others. You can develop the platform or develop content for someone’s platform. Or distribute that platform and/or content on someone else’s service.
5th model bonus:
5. Free – the content is free so the maximum number of people reach the content-perfect for advertising. Or, if your content is so good that people will pay to see it, save money with a monthly subscription. Increase or replace the monthly subscription with a loyalty program that offers registered users the opportunity to buy or win products… and then sell the names of registered visitors to lead generation organizations. Don’t like marketing? Then, stick to your content creation specialty by distributing your content. Too much work? Then build your own content site using someone else’s free content, and then work with network partners to generate ad revenue.
Internet kills jobs We never had so many opportunities.