[Traditional publishing and media companies] struggle to create formats that will lock others out of the market and reduce choices for consumers. Are these the industries we want to look at when we think to shape the commercial future of the Internet?
Predictor: O'Reilly, Tim
Prediction, in context:In a paper presented by Tim O’Reilly at INET ’95, a conference sponsored by the Internet Society in Honolulu, Hawaii, June 27-30, the publisher outlines his ideas about the future of Internet publishing: ”I now have over 100 books in print, which collectively sell millions of copies a year and employ nearly 150 people in book, software and online publishing. What I want to share with you today are some of the characteristics of the print publishing market that make me think it provides some of the best models for the commercial Internet I’d like to see developed. – Barriers to entry are low. Especially with the advent of desktop publishing, almost anyone can produce a book, a magazine, a newsletter. – Niches abound. Over 50,000 books are published each year in the U.S. alone … What’s more, there are about 3,500 general-circulation magazines and tens of thousands of newsletters and other limited-circulation publications. – Business models abound … – No one owns the market or needs to … – The same technology is available to everyone … – There is a rich ecology of mutually successful players … – Access is universal and non-exclusive … By now you’re probably getting the drift. Publishing is a commercial market – a multi-billion-dollar market – that looks a lot like the Internet as it is now, and as we’d like it to remain. [Traditional publishing and media companies] struggle to create formats that will lock others out of the market and reduce choices for consumers. Are these the industries we want to look at when we think to shape the commercial future of the Internet?”
Biography:Tim O’Reilly was founder and first president of O’Reilly & Associates, a computer-book-publishing company that helped popularize the Internet in the decade of the 1990s. His Global Network Navigator site (GNN, which was sold to America Online in September 1995) was the first Web portal and one of the initial commercial sites on the World Wide Web. He received InfoWorld’s Industry Achievement Award in 1998 for his advocacy on behalf of the Open Source community. He served on the board of trustees for the Internet Society and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. (Entrepreneur/Business Leader.)
Date of prediction: June 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Economic structures
Subtopic: E-commerce
Name of publication: ISOC INET '95 (conference)
Title, headline, chapter name: Publishing Models for Internet Commerce
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.isoc.org/HMP/PAPER/063/html/paper.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Schmidt, Nicholas