With the fast evolving demands from consumers, industries (especially the web consulting industries) are now faced with greater challenges. Therefore, collaboration is now much more needed compared to competition.

We have bombarded with so much individualism that we think competition is better than collaboration. For instance, if there is an airplane manufacturer seeking for a company that can build one of its parts, and the company realizes that it is the only company that can supply this part to the manufacturer. Competition will say to the company, “why don’t we sell this part at a higher price since we are the only supplier that can produce this part?”.

Doing this indeed will generate an immediate increase in profit but it will not benefit the company in the long run. Competition indicates that one party wins and the other loses (in this case, the winning party is the company - the losing party the manufacturer has to pay higher cost for the parts). However, if it is a collaboration, both parties win (in this case, the company will sell its parts to the manufacturer at the right price). This might bring more benefits to the company in a long run - the manufacturer will be happy with the price and a long-term relationship with the company will be extended even more.

Therefore, in this competitive environment, I think it is good for us to sit back and re-think our business model. Have we been a collaborator or a competitor with our client? Have we been doing our best to meet their budget, deadline, needs, and qualities?

“Our clients success is indeed our success”

My attention was grabbed by an article at copyblogger entitled Catablogging: Blog-Based Ecommerce and Affiliate Marketing. The term catablogging certainly caught my attention and enticed me to learn more about what it is.

Catablogging is blogging by mixing content and commerce deliberately. It is not just a blog that will attract people to buy stuffs from the site but also a blog that will attract people who are interested with the lifestyle surround the products.

For instance, if you are selling fashion products, write an article about the upcoming spring fashion and relate it with your fashion products!

This is catablogging.

I remember a McDonald billboard that says “The number that comes after FREE is $1.00″. Together with this text is the tempting and delicious 4 chicken nuggets.

However, this is totally different in the digital world. Chris Andreson, the editor in chief of Wired magazine, wrote an article “Free! Why $0.00 is the Future of Business“. In the digital world, the number that comes after FREE is still F-R-E-E.

The article outlines the reasons why FREE is the future of business:
1. Freemium: provide some free trials with limited functionality just to entice users to subscribe on the paid functionalities. (e.g. Flickr free account vs. Flickr premium account)
2. Advertising: free content and everything but money is generated from advertising.
3. Cross-subsidies: provide one thing free so that you can sell another thing related to this free stuff.
And many more can be found in the article.

What amazes me most is “FREE changes EVERYTHING”. The cost of bandwidth, storage, and processing power in the digital world is falling down to the FREE level because of Moore’s law. This changes how business is conducted in the digital world. We can see that while Google gives so many free (and great) applications they still prosper (through the Advertising). So, FREE is no more an anomaly in the digital world - it starts to become the norm. I guess in the near time, we should be thinking “How can I make my online business FREE?”.