Strategies for newly emerging technologies
The article discusses the current situation in the app and social media market. The main points of concern of the article is the current creative stagnation in the world of app making and the best strategies for new products to come to the global market. According to the article, most of the social network apps nowadays include a wide variety of features and expand the number of them by adapting similar features from their rivals. Almost no other giants emerged in the last couple years since new projects these days have a hard time differentiating themselves from other networks. Moreover, the problem also lies in the user interest: the older people are not willing to switch to new networks while younger users tend to switch apps very often (they are less likely to stick with some app, and they always keep looking for better options). How should one adjust to the current market then? The article argues that one must start with a single idea or a feature instead of aiming to become the next technological giant of the future. According to the author, any such idea might grow into a social network in the end; however, it must start with some concept that is rather small, but unique or a concept that targets a specific audience.
Some interesting concepts can be used to analyze the facts and strategies the source describes while talking about the path to success of emerging startups. First of all, the article touches the theory of structural balance since it is talking about big companies absorbing new potential rivals. The phenomena makes sense in terms of network analysis:the strategy the big companies employ decreases the structural imbalance created by these small companies. We can apply the same theory to understand the strategy the author suggests to potential startups: to implement a small but a very specific idea instead of trying to compete with already existing companies. One would think that it might be hard for a startup to rise in popularity if it targets a very small audience or has only one feature since the initial network of people using it would not be too big. It could be hard for the information about this startup to spread. However, by focusing on one small concept such startup would avoid getting into network of “giants” too early. Therefore, such company would not create an imbalance in the graph representing big rivals; the chance of this company of being absorbed or eliminated by the giants would be smaller.
Another interesting question to consider is whether a company can achieve a similar effect (avoid structural imbalance) by targeting social groups or geographic regions that are not as affected by the current technological giants. When we construct a graph of technological rivals, we might forget to include factors such as physical distance of the company as well as the type of audience it is geared towards. For instance, if one establishes a company similar to Venmo but in a place that is currently unaware of such app, we would still consider them rivals. However, the rivalry is slightly mitigated by the fact that their audience is different. The problem of such strategy,however, is the globalization of most companies. Most giants of the technological industry often try to reach out to audiences that are distant from them. Therefore, the two similar companies- no matter where they start- might still end up becoming big rivals.
-VR
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