Interesting People mailing list archives
IP: Re: For wireless ISPs, small is beautiful
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2001 07:44:06 -0500
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>[Note: This comment comes from a reader of Farber's IP list, who saw a post I made earlier this week. I encourage reader to check out the two papers that he cites. DLH]At 3:10 -0800 12/15/01, Andrew Odlyzko wrote:From: Andrew Odlyzko <odlyzko () dtc umn edu> To: dewayne () warpspeed com Subject: Re: IP: For wireless ISPs, small is beautiful Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2001 03:10:35 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Dewayne, Apropos your most recent posting to Dave Farber's IP list (and also other ones), an important factor that helps explain why giant new ventures like Metricom and Webvan failed is that Internet time is a myth. New technologies are generally being developed faster than before, but they generally do not spread through society any faster. That is a key reason that most dot-com business plans were doomed to failure. I have a brief note about this, entitled "The myth of Internet time," which appeared in the April 2001 issue of "Technology Review." It is based on an earlier and more detailed paper on this subject, entitled "The slow evolution of electronic publishing," which appeared in 1997. Both are available at <http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/eworld.html>. Being small allows for adjusting to the speed with which new products and services can diffuse, as opposed to having to depend on every conceivable consumer jumping on your bandwagon the moment you open for business. Even home delivery of groceries is being done profitably by a few companies in a few places, and is growing. Best regards, Andrew
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- IP: Re: For wireless ISPs, small is beautiful David Farber (Dec 15)