The Potential Of The Internet Economy For Your Small Business!

Moore’s Law describes the falling cost of digital technology. Gordon Moore, one of the co-founders of Intel Corporation, made mathematical observations in the 1960s of the engineering practices which allowed miniaturization in semiconductor technology. This miniaturization applies to processors and other computer components as well as memory chips.

What he observed mathematically is that computers can be made four times more powerful every three years for the same cost. Some argue that this same formula has held true for a full century if you include the mechanical computers of the early 1900s and the old-fashioned transistors that followed.

If you knew that you could get four times more raw materials every three years with no increase in cost in a given business, would you want to get into that business? The overwhelming answer everywhere is, of course, a resounding “yes!”.

The truth is that all businesses, even traditional brick-and-mortar businesses, must market their goods and services. All businesses look for the lowest cost to perform their processes. More and more marketing information and marketing processes, even more, physical offline shops and businesses, will become digital.

Moore’s Law ensures that Internet businesses, especially digital marketing, will continue to grow and flourish at an astounding rate. Intel’s engineers assured us that Moore’s Law will continue to operate for several more device generations, if not indefinitely.

The next factor that ensures continued growth for Internet businesses is the acceptance by consumers of digital environments. People have taken to Cyberspace and have warmed up to digital environments with enthusiasm. Many Web communities and social networks have already been formed.

Participants have developed a strong sense of identity with some of the digital communities.

As Moore’s Law continues to operate, our technology becomes more and more capable of producing engrossing digital environments in which even larger numbers of people will enthusiastically participate.

Online communities are forming in much the same way that communities have formed in the physical world throughout history—only much faster. The success stories of Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, and others make it now impossible to think that physical businesses will go on as usual, unaffected by the Internet.

The third factor assuring a prosperous future for Internet entrepreneurs and digital marketers is convergence. Simply defined, convergence is the coming together of separate things. Computing, communications, and media companies are merging to form big multimedia ventures.

New devices are being used to combine computing with phones, TVs, and PCs in one central media center.

Even our money has now become digital, as we have automatic bank deposits of our earnings while we buy things with credit and debit cards. Then there’s the Crypto-currencies boom.

If you understand the business models of Alibaba, Amazon, and the many successful eCommerce sites, then you will see convergence at work.

Facebook owns Instagram & WhatsApp, Google owns Youtube, etc. What this is telling us all is that digital products and processes become more and more important as the Internet gets closer and closer to people’s everyday lives.

It can only be surprising and most unfortunate that so many Nigerians are still ignorant about the potential of the internet and its opportunities, and as such, decide rather not to venture into unfamiliar terrain. If only they keep an open mind and try to make the effort in finding out what tools of the internet can really be of help to their businesses and life in general.

One thing is for sure, these three factors—Moore’s Law, acceptance of digital environments, and convergence—assure us that the potential of the Internet for even the small business entrepreneur is nothing less than incredible. In fact, the belief in these three factors has been driving our economy for some time now.

Venture capitalists are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into purely digital ventures. In the digital world, the large corporations have to compete, not just with each other but also with the home-based and small business entrepreneurs. The large conglomerates no longer have the exclusive advantage.

Given the low cost of computing power, individual entrepreneurs now have at their disposal the raw materials to develop digital products and processes and make them available to the world.

Even more importantly, individual entrepreneurs can band together in digital environments to combine their skills and knowledge and use convergence to their advantage in a very efficient way, rivaling the large companies with the results.

To obtain convergence, you must bring together access to the internet, media content, and information processing. To obtain the economies of scale, you should position yourself within a digital community where resources can be shared like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, WhatsApp, and others.

There is still power in numbers with regard to media content and information processing.

To position yourself as a small business entrepreneur and marketer within the environment of one of the fastest-growing digital communities in existence is, without doubt, the smartest move you could possibly make right now.

Having done that, you can use your individual creativity, skills, and resources in an environment of freedom by employing the low-cost computing power at your disposal to obtain your financial goals for your business.

Finally, to become an effective marketer of your business services, you also need to learn how to analyze and understand Internet traffic in this internet economy