Conclusions from the 2006 e-Business World

(Europe - Stockholm, Sweden) Two days after New Years Eve, I am starting to digest the increasingly hot e-business market in 2006. Looking in the back mirror the most significant change was the rise of the video. Amateur video on the Internet. The YouTube revolution will have a big impact on upcoming e-business development both on consumer and on business markets. The YouTube effect is the first look at a paradigm shift on Internet user behaviour. People are increasingly feeding their underlying needs of receiving information and entertainment through video. The Web 2.0 innovation, which lets everyone create and share information easy, is feeding this need which will grow stronger and stronger for years to come. As more and more companies have been forced to review their business models the confusion is total. During 2006 we have seen three categories of companies. Those that understand and embrace the change, those that are forced to change and those who resist the change. Unfortunately the latter are the biggest group.

The past year has also increased the speed of innovation. There are many factors for this increase of speed such as more programmers out there, easy tools for creation, increased VC money, and of course a new generation of people grown up with computers. The mash-up world has created many new interesting services that are fuelling the speed of the e-world. More and more business areas are being under attack. Skype introduced IP-telephony to the big masses and forced telecom companies all over the world to review their prices. Now the founders of Skype are trying to do the same for the Television world. People have for long expressed the need of controlling their own TV behaviour but the TV companies have not listened. Now we are up for big change and a very interesting 2007.

The community phenomenon has also been one of the main focal points of last year. MySpace was the big winner with plenty of media exposure which let it become the biggest community on the Internet. If you remember many “experts” predicted that the Internet would make people less social. They painted a picture where everyone was locked into their rooms leaving it just to do life needing activities. So what happened? The prediction went the other way. People started to communicate more. Actually studies have shown that people actually increased their social contacts and their network of friends. The community phenomenon is playing on this human based need of being together.

The telecom companies are slowly starting to realise that they are not just technology enablers but communication experts. As mobile communications during the year have increased in importance all over the world the telecoms are forced reluctantly to change their core business model. The understanding of the user though is still at its infancy. On oligopoly markets the change comes slowly but a revolution is in front of us. New technology such as WiMax and initiatives such as Fon shows us that the powers of telecoms are decreasing and with decreased power comes change.

The latter period of 2006 has shown us the long awaited breakthrough of 3G usage. Although the usage among consumes are still low it is slowly moving towards higher levels. Next year will be interesting to follow as more and more consumers start demanding mobile communication.

2006 was also the yea of gadgets. I have never experienced such an explosion of electronic gadgets. Apples iPod was a huge success. 85% of the total MP3 market owns an iPod. New computers, new chips, new TVs, new mobiles…well basically everything was updated. Since the world economy grew with healthy numbers people in the developed world consumed gadgets as never before. These gadgets are transforming our needs for technology and are creating new markets for the witty company.

Since competition and speed has increased on all e-markets the consumer has gained more power to make or break a product or service. This gives us a very interesting outlook for next year. Our next post will in fact take a look at the year to come and what type of services will increase.