Middlepeople: June 02, 1997 issue of New Thinking

June 02, 1997 New Thinking:
Middlepeople

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June 02, 1997

Middlepeople

By Gerry McGovern

They say that the size of the communist elite that ran Russia after the Russian Revolution was roughly equal to the royal elite that ran it before the event.

The Internet is indeed a revolution, but we should not overestimate the power of a revolution. After all, isn’t another meaning of ‘revolution’ to revolve, to go a full circle and return to the same point.

They say that there won’t be a middle on the Internet. They say that the middleman (or woman) will disappear. But there’s always a middle.

The Internet will change a lot but it won’t change everything. The Internet will improve certain things but it will disimprove other things. The Internet will change forever how we distribute digital products (software, information, etc.)

But the Internet will not change the fact that a product is sold between one party and others. The party that is intending to buy wants more than simply the product. They want information, they want support, they want to feel that they are buying a reputable product from a reliable supplier.

People talk about information overload on the Internet. We all suffer from it. There is simply so much out there, of such varying quality, that it is impossible to even begin to take it all in. That’s why we go to places like Yahoo. Yahoo is a ‘middleperson’.

As the Internet grows and deepens, we have, in theory, the capacity to access all the information we need to make a particular decision. Although we will have this capacity, we will quite simply not have the time. Middlepeople, such as Yahoo, Cnet, etc., will be our time keepers and information refiners.

Middlepeople and the middle ground will not disappear. They will simply morph and become different kinds of middlepeople and middle ground. Companies such as Dell and Gateway 2000 have moved the middle ground within their corporate circle, but will every company do that?

I don’t think so. Dell and Gateway have invested heavily in the middle ground of support and back-up. They are major brands. Smaller companies, who are not nearly as well branded still need the ‘branding’ of a well known middle distributor or other organization. Because the average consumer will still think, ‘Well, X is offering this as part of its range, so it must have met a certain quality standard.’

However, the Internet will in many cases change the nature of the middle ground. We will have distributors who no longer distribute the actual product, but rather who ‘distribute’ quality and extensive information and support on products.

Information overload is the threat we all face, and therefore it is a huge opportunity for those who have the expertise to tame the information flow and supply it on time in the right measures.

In 1918, Russia seemed to change radically, but in many ways remained the same. The Internet radically changes things, but the overall price of what we pay for most things may not change all that radically, as the old cost centers shift from one middle to another.

Gerry McGovern

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Information overload is the threat we all face, and therefore it is a huge opportunity for those who have the expertise to tame the information flow and supply it on time in the right measures.