WWGD

Having taken a 'concerned' view of all things Google in a recent blog I now find myself recommending what can only really be described as a disciples' guide to the phenomenon. Jeff Jarvis's book is filled with thought provoking ideas for anyone engaged in the frontier world of business online. If you're trading online or thinking about it, I'd say you have to read this. Alternatively you could just read Buzzmachine the blog from which the book is derived. The only reservation I have about making such a recommendation is the risk that others will use the ideas and become my competitors. But, as Mr Jarvis might say, that's not good google think.

Is the competition dying and am I bad for hoping so?

I know I am! But it dwells on my mind quite a lot. We often talk about a potential Forrest Gump moment. [You may recall that in the film Forrest buys a shrimping boat but can't catch a thing until one day a hurricane takes out all the other boats and from then on there's more shrimp than they can handle and become rich off the proceeds.] So I keep trying to find out anything I can from suppliers about how the market is faring overall and see if I can't sniff out any gossip about our competition. Maybe there are other ways of getting this sort of information I haven't thought of....