I posted yesterday on the Software 2008 talk by JupiterResearch’s Edward O’Hara on the Key Trends in 2008, but those trends weren’t the most interesting thing he had to say. Edward is a colorful speaker, so he had plenty of great lines, but my favorite was “Disintermediation never happened.” And he went on to not only back up his claim, but to explain how the big news is the exact opposite of disintermediation is the trend to watch.
For Internet old-timers, like me, “disintermediation” was a much bandied-about term in the ’90s, referring to the expectation that the Internet could banish the gulf between manufacturers and consumers occupied by distributors and retailers—the intermediaries. The theory went that the Internet made it cost effective for manufacturers to reach their customers directly without the inefficiencies of the long distribution channel that kept marking up the product.
Despite Edward’s claim, some disintermediation did happen. Dell led the way for PC makers to sell direct to customers, which remains disintermediation’s most visible and successful example. But Edward showed how the Internet has actually ushered in the age of what JupiterResearch calls “Complex Intermediation.”
Edward showed a slide that contained all number of new intermediaries that get between the originator of a product (or of content) and the eventual consumer:
- search engines
- online retailers
- online portals
- social networks
- video networks
- blogs
- instant messages
He could have thrown in affiliate marketers, too. Every time marketers start thinking about syndicating a message, or fomenting viral marketing pass-along, or posting content in a public place, they are introducing an intermediary into the conversation between them and their customers.
Edward makes the telling point that far from disintermediation, most companies ought to be working with as many intermediaries as possible.
Have you ever understood something, but had someone come along that explained it better so that it deepened your understanding? Thanks, Edward.
