Richness and Reach

Tremendous advantage we have as entrepreneurs in the age of disintermediation is that we no longer have to make a trade-off between richness and reach.

Philip Evans and Thomas S. Wurster, in Blown to Bits; How the New Ecnomics of Information Transforms Strategy (Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2000, pp. 23-4.), put it this way:

To the extent to which information is embedded in physical modes of delivery, a basic law governss its econimics there is a universal trade-off between richness and reach. But unbundle information from its physical carrier, and the richness/reach trade-off can blow up.

The trade off is fairly simple. 'Richness' means the quality of the information as defined by the user: accuracy, bandwidth, currency, customazation, interactivity, relevance, security, and so forth...'Reach' means the number of people who participate in the sharing of that information.

Here's what makes our time so special:

Until recently, it has been possible to share extremely rich information with a very small number of people and less rich information with a larger number, but it has been impossible to share simultaneously as much richness and reach as one would like. This trade-off is at the heart of the old economics of information.

Now we can send lengthy emails, newsletters, have detailed websites, blogs, wikis, attach video to emails, the list is mind-boggling. None of this was possible before the economics of information was detatched from the economics of things by the internet.

What do you think? Are you interested in this? I'd like to know. Post a comment. And check out the Evans and Wurster book. It's profound and insightful.

Entrepreneurshp informs all my professional activities. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.hatman.com.