Another One Bites the Dust

As technology marches on, some industries are created and others die. For centuries the blacksmith was a vital part of every village and town. When the horseless carriage came along – the blacksmiths importance went south quickly.

When you used to get ice from an ice house, it was a booming industry. There were delivery trucks everywhere and you got your ice to keep your food cold and not spoil. When refrigerators came along, this industry took a very large hit.

In the small town I live in, our video rental store just closed down. When people can use Netflix and RedBox to get videos there is not much need for a video store.

Cell phones are another area that has turned the traditional landline business on its ear. Most people don’t have a landline anymore and use a cell phone exclusively.

The iPad and portable devices are now outselling desktop computers.

Print media, newspapers and books, are being replaced with electronic media.

CDs and DVDs are being replaced with electronic streaming and downloads.

In all these instances, whole industries will either die or lose their once prominent position in the way things are done.

Jobs will be lost and other will be created.

This, I believe, is what we are going through now on a global scale. The staple industries are being replaced with other industries. People are losing jobs in this transition. Economies that relied on these services are changing.

No one is certain where the new industries are going to fit into the global scheme of things.

This brings fear and uncertainty in the world as to what will be the new staple industries. Some are prepared and will move along to other opportunities. Others will not have the training to do so.

Just as always; fortunes will be won and lost in the transition.

Take cable and satellite TV. They will soon be replaced with streaming services that will run on any device capable of doing it. The traditional way of getting media of any type is changing rapidly. The new technology coming out is going to rock your world.

This has been a complaint of many people to be able to just pay for the channels they watch. The networks controlled this for years (it has not been your local cable company or satellite provider). The slew of channels you have currently is totally controlled by what the networks dictate.

The networks tell the providers what channels they can have in what package. The cable or satellite providers are just payment conduits for the networks. They are the networks billing system.

This is how it works; the provider has customers that want channel “X”. The networks say, OK, to get channel “X”, you also have to take channels “Y”, “Z”, and “F”. These channels have to be in the most watched tier or package you provide. You also have to pay for each of these channels for EACH customer you have.

This is how it has worked for years. If you read about NetFlix and Starz!, it is interesting and a turning point. NetFlix paid Starz! for content. They paid a flat price for unlimited content. This was fair to both parties. Starz! did not realize how large NetFlix was going to become.

At the contract renewal, Starz! wanted NetFlix to pay them a fee for each customer they served, like they currently do for cable and satellite providers. NetFlix told them to pound sand.

The thing is that a NetFlix subscription is usually cheaper than a subscription through your provider of ANY of the premium services; Starz!, HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, or the rest. You can also watch whatever movie you want anytime you want.

If you want to make a killing on the stock market, fiber is a good bet. All the fiber manufacturers are a minimum of 18 MONTHS backlog. Some are not taking any new orders. This is going to change how your media is delivered as more cable, telecom, and everyone else is putting up more fiber to deliver our voracious appetite for media on our devices.

These industries are the ones in a major growth period. These are the new staple industries. Whether it be your texting, videos, chat sessions, or any communications that rely on a large quantity of bandwidth.

There will be a need for trained people in these industries to keep things working and build new infrastructure. You are in the midst of this monumental transition. The companies with the foresight to have developed ways to capitalize on these changes will prosper.

The rest will not do too well. You see it takes paying customers to make a business work. The transition to other ways of doing things is well underway. People are leaving newspapers, cable, satellite, land-line phones, and many other traditional media in alarming numbers.

So what does all this have to do with making money on the Internet, you ask? It has a lot to do with it. If the sites you have and the products you are promoting don’t scale well to the new technology you will be left out and trying to catch up. Those that are using this new vehicle will reap the rewards.

Take the Apple mobile products for example. They do not support Flash. This is supposed to be a staple technology on the Internet and they were forecast to die because of it. Have you seen the iPad and iPhone sales numbers lately? I was reading an article about this and most of the ones who “had to have Flash” were not owners of these products.

The ones who were owners didn’t feel they are missing a thing without Flash. Obviously the sales numbers speak volumes on the importance to people of Flash. They love not having the pesky Flash ads on sites.

What you need to realize is that if you are marketing a product that is in the demographic that uses these devices and you rely on Flash for your site; you are losing money. The people you are trying to reach and sell to can’t see it! They could care less. They chalk it up to lazy site owners not getting with the program.

Adobe has spent YEARS and a ton of money to try to stem the bleeding to make a workaround technology to let Flash work on these devices. Why would they do that IF it wasn’t important? Something to think about huh?

These great sites, videos, and webinars we rely on to make a living work fine on desktops and laptops. They are not going to be the rule soon and will become an oddity. When someone comes over and sees a desktop or laptop; “You still have one of those?!?” Just like when people still saw iceboxes when refrigerators came out.

It will be like, “Ewww, you still use a phone with a cord?!?” or “How do I see who I am talking to?”

Talk to late teens and early twenties people and you will see what I mean.

Can people who use an iPad or even an Android device use your website? Does it look good or really bad? Do the ebooks you are giving away or selling work on a Kindle? Does the video you are relying on for sales work on these devices? If your customer is about to purchase and then notices that your product won’t work on their favorite device; will they still purchase?

Would you?

Why do you think the major web players have a special mobile version of their sites?

Why are so many people making their product in versions to work on different devices?

You either need to plan and implement things now or try to do it when your traffic (and sales) dries up. Think of a Google Slap, but bigger.

Just ask yourself this question: How many people do you know that DON’T have a cell phone?

The bottom line is, like it or not, the way we do things now has to change for us to survive. Not large changes, but a change in paradyn none the less. Are you ready for it? There will be a time when the only people who use a desktop or laptop will be the dirt poor; will they buy your products?

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Tagged As: Android, earn money from the web, Google, Internet marketing, iPad, iPhone, Make Money on the Internet, Web Site