Lesson for leaders
How will you exceed the new winners-eat-everything digital economy? You must surpass the world’s billion-user platforms that are eating the digital world, and as Amazon shows, advancing far into the physical one. Even the billion-user platforms face this threat. They will soon need to defeat each other or lose everything.
Digital convergence wars are coming. Why? The prize is the world’s digital infrastructure for decades to come. If you are one of today’s giant leaders, the reward is to concentrate the world’s wealth in your own corporate-first hands. The penalty will be total defeat.
If you are a publisher or media, your only chance is to change the paradigm, win a different game, and conquer from your chosen playing field. Your competitive strategy could be to add people-first exponential growth publishing, and ride it to industry leadership—then scale it to lead the world.
This may be your last chance to win today’s only real race, to capture the fast-arriving digital infrastructure. Put on your ten-league boots. It’s stomping time.
Today’s business scale is billion-user platforms: lead the world or go home
How have today’s billion-user platforms been created? Hunt for massive traction by pivoting your innovations, buying hot startups and copying those you can’t buy. Then scale digitally worldwide.
By 2025 the dominant platforms aim to capture most of the world’s digital economy through addictive technologies, AI, robotics, universal tracking-advertising-persuasion, cost elimination, and automated jobs. That digital world will surround and be invisible to unconnected companies.
Today’s linear and non-platform leaders will have four choices:
- Be consumed and work in the digital infrastructure for its leaders
- Decline to a smaller size and work in the old disconnected economy
- Die
- Only a few will rise to the challenge of taking on today’s leaders by building a world-leading platform of their own.
Publishing is one of the major industries that could be up to this challenge.
The Digital Convergence Wars of 2020-2025
Digital Convergence will explode into war. Follow-the-leader will stop working as the platforms add hooks to consume companies that merely copy them. Each of the giant platforms will spend $billions to capture your customers, the economy and entire societies.
How will your company win against the billion-user platforms, AI’s and voice bots from Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple?
Either capture your industry, then other industries, or be captured.
Digital convergence warfare is almost here. How do you prepare strategically?
These wars will fight to own the world’s fast-arriving global digital infrastructure:
- Digital Convergence Wars are arriving: This will rapidly converge the future of devices (Apple, Samsung, AR-VR-MR), advertising/marketing (Google, Facebook), work (Microsoft, Slack), commerce (Amazon, Alibaba, Walmart), cloud (Amazon, Microsoft, Google), and much more. Some of today’s leaders will not make it.
- The top leading companies each have their roadmap, but they know it’s too early to see if they can win: The billion-user platforms are not yet prepared battle for their strategic global convergence into a digital infrastructure. Facebook announced the most visible 10-year roadmap. It focused on their $2 billion VR purchase of Oculus, and Mark Zuckerberg demo-ed himself living in VR in the future. Then Amazon leaped ahead with Alexa, Google declared AI will be its future, chatbots rose, Pokemon Go triggered Apple’s addition of the ARKit platform, the cloud services war erupted, and Microsoft bought LinkedIn for $26 billion and re-focused on the cloud. These are the skirmishes. The great war for dominance has yet to break out.
- Tech’s leaders know that tech causes widespread job losses and leaves millions behind: They talk up “more creative lives” and avoid visible systems to grow widespread prosperity, because that will highlight their negative impacts. It will also prove that they don’t know how to solve problems caused by corporate-first platforms. None of the billion-user platforms has a roadmap to build a planet that delivers universal prosperity and include everyone. Today’s leaders focus attention on their latest shiny object advance. This distracts from the “real story,” which is: who among them will wind up winning and becoming the richest while not mentioning how many people are made poorer as tech leaves their jobs behind. They don’t discuss the answer to our generation’s historic question: where is the wealthy future we knew was coming from advanced technology? It’s here but it’s in their pocket. Most of the world remains relatively poor, without a clear way to rise.
In contrast, an exponential platform is the only IP (intellectual property) that has been developed specifically to deliver a people-first digital Earth, start universal prosperity, and build a successful planet in years, not some future generation.
- This IP is an “intentional invention” to create a positive future without revolutionary wars, and without attacking those at the top.
- The U.S. Patent Office divided its 1,400 page patent specification into 31 technology categories.
- This IP is designed to create a patent family with a potential hierarchy of hundreds of divisional patents.
- Why start with IP? To provide competitive advantages to the few companies that invest in leading a successful planet, to strengthen their unique role and leadership.
- Who is paying attention? This IP has already been cited by over 650 subsequent patents, with the most citations from leading tech companies. In comparison, the average patent receives only 3 citations, and only a small number of patents receive more than 100-200 citations, out of millions of patents.
- The growing number of citations of this IP is already making it a node in the tech “IP tree” that reveals the future.
As the physical and digital worlds merge, the digital Earth will grow dominant. Everyone will fall behind if tomorrow’s digital infrastructure fails to accelerate everyone’s personal abilities and successes.
But if the digital infrastructure is people-first, then everyone can rise. Think of how many people use one direct and simple Amazon and bypass all the other e-commerce choices.
Instead of today’s multiple platforms, a people-first publishing platform would simplify everyone’s “presences”; always on connections; personal digital protections and physical safety; immediate achievement during each interaction; and everyday online life, work, and entertainment. This was designed to build the preferred choice for digital life, work, learning, and entertainment.
A direct and personal “People-First Digital Earth” will empower everyone to achieve much more, immediately, across the world. Its exponential publishing platform may be the last chance for leading publishing and media companies to take the lead.
What’s at stake? The winning infrastructure will lead the digital economy for decades to come
Today’s leaders have corporation-first roadmaps. Their success comes first.
Instead, an exponential publishing platform adds a two-way Internet business model that builds a successful digital Earth that includes everyone.
With Digital Convergence Wars arriving by about 2020, it’s time now for publishing to prepare its strategy, technology, and platforms.
This Media 2025 Exponential Roadmap gives publishers and media critical elements they need for victory:
- You see what’s coming while you still have resources, talent, communication channels that reach everyone, and are early enough to act.
- This technology shows you how to leap ahead at speed, and translate new people-first technology into business leadership.
- Business ecosystem — Its technology and its exponential platforms are designed for partnering and ecosystem growth. Many threatened industries and leading companies will face digital extinction. You expand your central role by coordinating their sharing in people-first prosperity by using your exponential platform as a service.
- People ecosystem — Large numbers of people can use your exponential platform to take personal action and rise to the top. Successful personal lives can begin again. Your platform will continuously grow and advance their needs, protect them personally, and drive both personal and children’s success. That will appeal to people everywhere, worldwide.
- Cloud business — An exponential platform produces a scalable cloud service you can deliver as a scalable business. It begins by developing it and using it online for your company, markets, and customers. Then its proven advantages can be sold as a service. Potentially large numbers of leading companies who can add it rapidly to drive their own successful global digital transformations.
- Early revenues — To cover costs, future participation can be pre-sold at early stages, just like movie distribution rights are currently pre-sold for countries, toys and branded products are licensed toys, and other spin-offs are pre-sold. In the movie industry, these sales can cover most movie production costs. There is also the tech model of other companies’ VC funds investing and purchasing an equity stake.
Once launched, an exponential ecosystem can use your “Digital Earth as a Service” (DEaaS). Companies can generate new growth by adding an advanced Digital Earth for their customers and markets. People can rise by using your Digital Earth to live, work, learn, and entertain.
Instead of a digital Economy driven by corporation-first dominance, you can lead a successful people-first Digital Earth with visible markets and more efficient people-first companies that serve everyone faster, cheaper, and better. Your leadership helps capitalism evolve into partnership capitalism that benefits everyone, instead of a few.
There isn’t another roadmap like this, to drive the success of large numbers of companies and people worldwide. But to win, it’s time to fasten your seat belt and learn how a successful digital Earth will work.
Related articles in Media 2025:
- Executive summary: Lead exponential digital growth through publishing and advertising
- Previous article: Your company’s digital future is still open, if you capture it first
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