While the Internet has tremendous potential for business, all is not boundless opportunity and easy profits … There will be pitfalls to developing interactive multimedia products and services on the Information Superhighway. A large mass market, deep pockets and previous mass-media experience alone will not guarantee success. Understanding what customers want, are willing to pay for, and what satisfies them remain deeply misunderstood or understood too little by many marketers.
Predictor: Hoffman, Donna L.
Prediction, in context:Donna Hoffman and Thomas Novak of Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management say in a 1994 article for The Owen Manager: ”The Internet is estimated to have 15-20 million users, directly connected via more than 2 million computers, and is growing at the rate of more than 1 million new users a month. It has doubled in size every year since 1986, extends to more than 50 countries and is projected to have more than 500 million users spanning 100 countries by the end of this century … With numbers like that, the Internet has reached critical mass. Businesses are increasingly taking a serious look at doing business on the ‘Net,’ as they begin to realize its potential as both impressive business opportunity and tool to improve productivity. Commercial computer networks are now the fastest growing segment of the Internet, increasing more than sixfold since 1991. The Internet is fast, inexpensive, international, encourages collabortion and resource sharing, and has tremendous, often overwhelming, amounts of information … While the Internet has tremendous potential for business, all is not boundless opportunity and easy profits. There have been some notable failures with commercial online services. For example, IBM and Sears have lost $500 million to date on Prodigy; Warner Cable’s interactive QUBE project lost $20 million between 1977 and 1986, until the project was shelved; and PC home banking has for the most part been unsuccessful. This suggests that there will be pitfalls to developing interactive multimedia products and services on the Information Superhighway. A large mass market, deep pockets and previous mass-media experience alone will not guarantee success. Understanding what customers want, are willing to pay for, and what satisfies them remain deeply misunderstood or understood too little by many marketers.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Economic structures
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Owen Graduate School of Management Magazine: The Owen Manage
Title, headline, chapter name: Commercializing the Information Superhighway: Are We in for a Smooth Ride?
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://elab.vanderbilt.edu/research/papers/html/manuscripts/smooth.ride.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney