Standards for the “Demand Environment”
By Brooks Jordan | September 9, 2008
Why does something catch on? Because enough people get why that something has value and how it works until they’ve drawn in even the laggards. Then it has a life of its own.
That’s happening to Twitter.
But what if the something isn’t a thing like a Web app but a political movement, or a soccer team in a rebuilding phase, or an industry.
That kind of something that has lots of people and moving parts needs standards in order to evolve. A standard is a norm or a rule or principle that the community accepts as valid.
What would we have done, for example, if the W3C hadn’t created some guidelines for Web development and design? Many of the apps we use every day wouldn’t be the same and might not even exist. Even Microsoft has caught up to those standards with the release of IE8.
The Web is driving a lot of people crazy because the potential has been, and continues to be, huge. And there have been lots of successes. But, even so, when “free” is the starting point, how do you build a viable company off of what requires a very different way of thinking and executing?
Clearly, that isn’t just a question of the specific business idea or opportunity, which can be singularly great, lucky, or acquired, it also has a lot to do with the features of the environment everyone is operating in.
In the broadest sense, the new business environment is a digital media environment, what VideoEgg calls a “demand environment.” Meaning, connected consumers get to demand – or reject – what they want. No matter what kind of business you’re in – t-shirts or wind turbines – you have to deal with the digital version of demand.
Standards that are based on this new type of consumer-driven demand are going to help a lot with that. And, if you’re looking for them, they’re starting to pop up in various places, like this recent piece about Web TV, which is all about nascent standards.
It talks about tapping niches, distribution models, traffic measurement, user guides, living-room TV integration, promotional support and viewing formats. Many aren’t even close to being figured out, but clearly TV on the Web is beginning to take form – they’ve started the conversation, and that’s a big step.
No doubt, other industries may be ahead of or behind Web TV, but everyone is starting to think about standards.