Monday 2 March 2009

Googleators and market concentration

I read earlier today that there are 133 website aggregators. Sorry, I don't know whether that is UK, Worldwide, Western civilisation or one specific category. The article made the point that they are having to spend more and more on marketing to maintain traffic levels. But you can't help but wonder why there isn't just one great big googleator to aggregate the aggregators. It would save them all that marketing spend. Seems pretty obvious logic that a winner (or a very few) could potentially take all. All they are doing is delivering information. The economies of scale or more to the point the dis-economies of scale seem clear. Big is better. Small is nowhere.

Market domination in information services, but why not other markets? The Internet has essentially just giving us access to much much more information so you would expect the 'good products' to float to the top and the bad ones to suffer accordingly. I would be fascinated to know whether we are observing greater market concentration so a fewer number but albeit bigger companies dominating markets. And before you ask, surrounded by lots of smaller organisations focusing on specific segments and niches. Why be medium sized - whatever that is?

The Internet has made it easier for companies to enter markets and also provides them with greater reach quicker. But on the flip side better access to information for consumers may have resulted in any brand with inferior products or services struggling to maintain customers and share.

Sounds like a PHD topic.

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Just curious about marketing, psychology, economics, business, irrational behaviour, people, models, communications, advertising, market imperfections, b2b marketing. I work in the marketing communications industry for OgilvyOne.