I was reading today in a printed magazine Business Week the article Beyond Blogs. It’s unusual these days to actually read on paper what we can find on our online world.

What’s interesting is the printed article did actually contain content I didn’t find online. There was a section called “We Didn’t See ‘em coming”, and it’s finally important site mentioned was iTunes. I found the following comment extremely relevant. “…. But we didn’t guess it would become the leading destination for podcast downloads. Contrary to our expectations, podcasts have evolved into a feature of traditional radio, not a rival to it.”

It’s important that with any business model you know, understand and review consistently your competitors. I find many organizations that don’t do this. You need to know your competitor. But as mentioned with iTunes, the designers of podcasts could have easily considered radio to be a competitor initially. One must always evaluate the changing times regularly.

The following are three more quotes of interest.

“But in the helter-skelter of the blogosphere, we wrote, something important was taking place: In the 10 minutes it took to set up a blogging account, anyone with an Internet connection could become a global publisher. Some could become stars and gain power.”

Like the LAMP stack has done for websites, the cost to entry now to get exposure is very low. The problem is now too much content exists to review, compare and evaluate effectively.

“Turned out it wasn’t quite that simple. The magazine article, archived on our Web site, kept attracting readers and blog links. A few professors worked it into their curricula, sending class after class of students to the story. With all this activity, the piece gained high-octane Google juice.“.

I’d not heard of Google juice before.

In relation to Linked In, FaceBook and MySpace, “While only a small slice of the population wants to blog, a far larger swath of humanity is eager to make friends and contacts, to exchange pictures and music, to share activities and ideas. These social connectors are changing the dynamics of companies around the world. Millions of us are now hanging out on the Internet with customers, befriending rivals,…“.