Paul Allen about disruptive businesses. Especially the first paragraph: I have some experience with disruptive business models because in 1998 we developed a strategy at Ancestry.com to give away for free everything that FamilyTreeMaker/Genealogy.com sold and to make our money from a new online subscription service. It worked beautifully. Last year MyFamily.com/Ancestry.com made almost $100 million in revenue and acquired Genealogy.com in April.
The (semantic) web can be used awfully disruptive in the building industry. I sometimes float ideas which include some free parts in it (a free ontology, providing a lot of information for free), but I meet a lot of disbelief that way: free information is not valuable, people don't want it as it is not supported, people won't trust it, etc..
In my opinion, somebody is going to disrupt the existing landscape of IT in the building industry. One way or another. Whether it is by using the web or not. The existing market will be disrupted. It is a risk that should be acknowledged, not laughed away. And perhaps it should be seen as an opportunity, wielded as a weapon.
Look in google for disruptive technology for more pointers.
My name is Reinout van Rees and I work a lot with Python (programming language) and Django (website framework). I live in The Netherlands and I'm happily married to Annie van Rees-Kooiman.
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