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Warning: This web at
toLearn.net/marketing/ is two years old, it's unattended, and the
links are rotting. However, in June 2000, the
server recorded over 10,000 page requests during more than 3,000 visitor sessions from dozens of
countries. Thus, I'm reluctant to take it down completely. Ricci Street | MBA 604 | marketing |
Ownership in the Digital Age by Gerry McGovern
Is ownership important to you? If it is, then how do you feel about not owning any of the software you use? Do you own a house and/or some land? If you do, and if you happen to live in Ireland, then that
doesn't mean that you can do just what you want with your house and land. You can't build
on it willy nilly. You have to get planning permission. If it's zoned for residential
purposes, then you can't just establish a factory or shop there.
Today, nobody owns the Internet (although the big telcos could probably lay reasonable claim). Nobody with sense is that interested in owning the Internet. Because the issue, from a social and commercial viewpoint, is not ownership, but rather benefit and use. It is not necessary to own something so as to achieve benefit
and use from it. Ownership is a particularly Industrial Age idea. Benefit and use is an
idea that thrives within a Digital Age Internet environment. Amazon, which claims to be 'Earth's Biggest
Bookstore', is an example of an organisation that seems to maximise benefit out of things
it doesn't own. Now, Amazon claims that it has 2.5 million titles. But does it actually
own 2.5 million titles? Hardly. Is there some big warehouse where it stores 2.5 million
titles? Unlikely. In fact, calling itself a bookstore only tells part of the story. As far
as I can see, Amazon very often acts as a junction box, connecting people who want to buy
books with people (publishers, distributors) who want to sell them. If Amazon existed in
the 'physical' world it wouldn't be a bookstore; it would be the street where you find
many bookstores collected. Dell computers doesn't 'own' or store its monitors. When it gets an order for a computer, it sends the order for the particular monitor requested to the monitor manufacturer. The manufacturer gets the monitor delivered, not Dell, thus saving Dell quite a bit of money. At the end of the day, it is not that important to own things. What is important is the benefit and use you achieve. The Internet is the Great Connector, and those who wish to maximise benefit and use, should maximise its capacity to connect. You have something. I have something. If you let me use your thing. If I let you use my thing. If one hundred or one thousand others do likewise, then we may create a powerful synergy of use and benefit. On the Internet there is 'gold' to be found in connecting, in networking. In the sharing of ownership so as to achieve mutual benefit and use. from NEW
THINKING
Doug's note: highly recommended ... for a fact-based rather than hype-based portrait of the Internet. In their field -- new media marketing -- the content at NUA's site is the research they should be doing anyway. By making it available on the Web, they attract a slew of business. A year ago they were a small outfit in Dublin. Now they have offices on four continents. Search the database
of surveys for what interests you. The choices range The good selection of graphs and charts to help you see the data. The numbers don't all agree, so it takes awhile. But soon you start to get a portrait of the new digital age Don't let the hype interfere with the facts. Get the facts so you can make good decisions.
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Ownership is an interesting idea. Irish people have a
particular obsession with ownership because of our past history of being enslaved by the
British Empire. It has a strong symbolic import for an Irish person to say that we own our
home or land, and for that reason Irish home ownership is among the highest in the world.
In the world of cyberspace,
ownership has a very different complexion. We exist within a world where space is
essentially endless and can be endlessly replicated and expanded. Our tools are software
programmes and they can be duplicated again and again at little cost.
from advertising and business use
to security and travel. 
