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Fastwater
Fastwater's work with clients on the cutting edge of technology and new
market development brings us up against new issues, questions, and
opportunities. For example, our work with companies building systems to
exchange goods and information on the Web raised difficult questions about just
how such exchanges work. What is the value to the buyer? To the
seller? What makes such exchanges successful, and when do they fail?
Similarly, our work in the publishing industry has brought us up against
questions about how the business of publishing and selling books is changing. What difference does print on demand publishing make? How
are the changes in the way that books are sold changing the ways that publishing
companies make money?
For Fastwater, all of these different issues and different markets come
together around two common questions:
- How do new technologies disrupt established markets and ways of
doing business?
- How do our clients (and other companies) introduce new products and
services in the face of such disruption?
The following short descriptions provide an overview of the different areas
we have examined with our clients. Each leads to a list of papers and
articles that will be useful to readers who are working in these areas, as well as to
those interested in the broader question how to introduce products that bring
about change.
Increasingly, businesses use the Web to exchange information and to
buy and sell supplies, raw materials, and finished goods. These
business-to-business electronic markets have been an area of enormous
innovation, change, and risk. Fastwater has worked with
electronic marketplaces since they first emerged as a new business
tool. We report both on what works and what doesn't.
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Book publishing is a business in the midst of enormous changes that
will play out over the next decade. A combination of new
technologies (including, most notably, the Web) and new distribution
channels has changed the formula for success, particularly for the
thousands of small and mid-sized publishers. Put simply, the
focus is shifting from "mass
market" to "micromarket". Fastwater has been
following these changes. Our research and analysis looks at
technology, distribution, and business issues such as asset
utilization in publishing.
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Content syndication--the automated exchange of content between
businesses--is just now emerging a mature, broadly useful web
application. It has the potential to open up new business
opportunities, and to strengthen existing businesses. Fastwater
has been following the development of Web-based content syndication
technologies and applications since their inception. Our
published articles include studies of applications, protocols, and
business issues.
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