there are NO online brands AT ALL??

Martin Hosking just tried to make the point that there are NO ONLINE BRANDS AT ALL. His argument seems to be that even ebay / Yahoo / Google aren't brands, because if their servers went down tomorrow, we would all move on to other providers...

What a STRANGE argument.

That's true of any business. Remember Ansett?

Now he's also saying that anyone who can build a better search engine than Google will beat them... I agree with that... but so? That means Google isn't a brand? He must have a different definition of "brand" than I.

How much money has Rupert Murdoch wasted on the internet? $4 or 5 billion dollars? He recently said about $2 billion apparently.

Good quote from Simon Smith, local MD for ebay - "the future is here already - it just isn't widely distributed yet. The internet will just become easier to use. We're working on how to make ebay easier to use. We've got Paypal - that's a way to send unlimited amounts of money across borders. With Skype we're trying to make communications easier. The future is about making things easier."

Comments

[JoshGlid]

"the future is here already - it just isn't widely distributed yet."

Being a pedant, I hope that Mr Smith attributed this quote. William Gibson apparently said it: "The future is already here - it's just unevenly distributed."

This site (http://www.brianstorms.com/archives/000461.html) tracks the origins of this meme to an NPR interview Gibson did in 1999.

[Ben]

And it is Tim O'Reilly's catch phrase at every talk he gives...

So Gibson via O"Reilly

[Andrew Landeryou]

It's a ridiculous argument to say there are no online brands just because a server failure would lead us to pursue alternatives. This is true of every service, every product in every market is it not?

Little wonder Looksmart chewed through billions of dollars of shareholder equity under the stewardship of Martin Hosking and his chum Evan Thornley.

Both of them made millions selling Looksmart stock while talking up its value to investors. Both were involved in the "strategy" of Looksmart which had one customer generating two-thirds plus of annual revenue.

Thornley now gives lectures around Australia on the Looksmart "success story" and Hosking even lectured for a time at the Melbourne Business School.

It is a sad indictment on what we regard as successful. But there were some and - are some- genuine innovators in the online space from Australia, starting with Outrim's Hot Dog web design software and continuing to this day in spheres like online marketing where Australia has some of the shrewdest players.

Hopefully, our successes will grow to the extent that Looksmart is described for what it was: one of the greatest cons in Australian history.

[David Dubbs]

I know and love both Martin and Evan. They are extraordinary people who took extraordinary risks to start LookSmart, at a time when the market was flooded with search products (95/96). I disagree with the interpretation of Martin's comments -- brands are not static entities. They have a life and they must be fed. Mini Cooper was a good brand that died and came back. Cadillac was a brand that stood for excellence long ago; then died; and has recently been resurrected. There's no question that eBay is a brand -- clearly there are other auction sites. Corporate policy might change that might damage the brand, but whether the servers run or not, it is a brand nonetheless.

I think there were many companies and technologies that were consumed into larger entities. For example, an early stage email directory called Four 11 was bought by Yahoo. That brand disappeared and became Yahoo People Search. Infoseek was both a technology and a search brand that was consumed. Consequently, there are brands that burn out quickly, and I suspect this might have been Martin's argument. I would disagree with him, however, if he really meant that Yahoo was not a brand.