The Soon To Be Most Coveted Thing On The Internet
There is nothing more valuable on a platform than the audience/customer/viewer/user/reader. Its all one in the same. The customer base is the foundation of pretty much the entire business world no matter where or what you’re selling. There is no business without the customer, and vice versa. You can imagine what a surprise it is, then, to see this play such an insignificant part in the strategy and focus of so many companies as it relates to doing business on the internet. I don’t think I can recall a single trade article across five industries that has referenced it in the past five years. I have never seen an article on how to build a customer base online. Yet, it’s really what makes sites like Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, Google, Amazon, Hulu, etc. a success. They’ve built a customer base. Many companies, however, are focusing on creating traffic instead. You can make money on traffic, of course. But, you can make a lot more on a customer base and that is why smart companies build them. If newspapers and print media were focused on doing so we would not see and hear of them dying but of their success. Plenty of internet companies have also failed for the same reason.
Right now, not many people in business have gotten to a place where they see things this way, but in the future, they will.
