The Downside

I always wonder why people copy business models that haven’t taken off. If you’re going to improve upon the model, that’s cool, but if the existing model isn’t exactly a hit, why copy it with the exact same model?

Amazon apparently looked at barely-recognized mobile Q&A service AskMeNow and said to their collective selves, hey let’s do the same thing! And let’s give it a dumb name! So, now Mr. Bezos and company are rolling out Nownow.com (currently in invite-only beta.) It may be mobile, but it isn’t social. It isn’t Web 2.0. It isn’t a hip new technology. It’s a crew of people in a sweatshop in India or the Philippines who can make a living from Americans who will spend a quarter to find out who won the World Series in 1946.

If no one has heard of AskMeNow, and no one uses Google Answers (same business model, but not mobile), why does Jeff think this is a good idea? How does this help him sell books? Or anything else, for that matter?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 27th, 2006 at 6:05 pm and is filed under Internet, Marketing. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.