If you are looking for a good indicator of real growth in the economy, look no further than the growth of the Internet.
Yes after all the corporate mergers have stifled the economic growth by downsizing, closing redundancies and lack of innovations in real (not money) products, the true sign of a rebound is in smaller start-ups. This time those start-ups will have a very strong if not complete web presence.
If you need a poster child for this concept, you need only look at the fate of Newspapers but they are not alone.
If you wish to gauge this, you need only to watch the Domain Industry. The dot COM, dot NET and dot INFO sales to end users. Who are these “END USERS”? Many of them are folks that have been disaffected (laid-off or let go) by the companies that were part of all the merger activity but many are those who fear just that and are getting a jump on the action. An example might be the use of www.steppingladder.com as a employment site. A group of one to three folks could run such a sight and provide as much service as a full employment agency. The low overhead of such a site on the internet is something the corporate world just has not been able to grasp.
By not preparing for the new type of competition that does not include buying-out those who are better at it than you has sealed their fate for their margins are better. The list goes on and on.
Some of the places were you may read on this action would be The Domain Name Journal and The Domain Name Wire. They will give you some insight as to the early indicators of the industry which continues to grow despite the rest of the economy. You only need to watch the growth of advertising dollars to see that. Where is a good place to buy such names? Bido.com, Sedo.com, or register your own name if available at godaddy.com and others.
Contrary to some belief, the best domains for start-ups is to have a 1,2 or 3 word domain that is memorable and preferably less than 18 letters. If you advertise in traditional media, you must leave an impression of that name on the folks to get them to your site when they are sitting at the computer.
If you watch actions on these types of names that are being sold, you will find an increasing amount of them are being sold to end users as compared to those who buy them as a future investment to those that may want them as a speculative action. Kinda like speculating in the real estate market.
The real question for our future growth is what will be done to these company’s that are really to big when face with real competition again. They are so overweight on the top end with high wages and benefits to the upper management with no real innovation in actual real products. I fear we may be bailing them all out because of their size unless once again they buy their way out by buying this new competition. Where will that lead us?
Keep watching the fate of Newspapers for the new model. This surely has only just begun.