One of the things I'm trying out, in a previous post, is learning how to focus the power of interlinked blogs from a hive to a lens - to focus its power as laser beam. I used the strategy in a sponsored post just now, but I have been wanting to expand on my blog ideas for some time.  I employed many of the techniques I've picked up and internalized and it reminds me of something Andy Beal just wrote about today.

"…Two of my greatest fears about the future of online retailing have been monopolization of industries and commodization of products. We have seen that trend in recent years as large companies are beginning to dominate, making it practically impossible for small online retailers to sell at competitive prices and get any kind of momentum.

Because of this, I currently view the Internet very differently from when I started my first company in 1999. At that point, a startup company could be competitive and profitable immediately. As the landscape has changed, that is no longer the case. In fact, it requires significant capital and expertise to start a successful company today, and success rates in many industries are low even for well-capitalized companies."

A couple of years ago, I was working on a client's SEO linking strategy and found it would be great if the client could get links from sites like eplans.com, buildonline.com, DYI.com and so on.  But it was impossible to get links on most sites like this as they're really set up to be different parts of  a business empire that interlinks to itself - thereby building up high level of backlinks that give ranking advantage in Search Engines, particularly Google.

But blogs can do the same thing even more effectively and when it works well, it's much quicker than SEO and lasts just as long, in my opinion.

Andy Beal also points out that customer feedback and social media are the antidote to big companies dominating online business - as they appear to be doing - which, in turn, make it much more difficult to succeed online now than 8 or 9 years ago.:

"…So what factor is taking the pace of price? The answer may surprise you–18% of shoppers said that customer feedback is the most important factor. Only 7% picked customer feedback in 2003.

As the web becomes more and more dominated by user generated content, it is obvious that customer feedback about companies and products will continue to grow in importance. This trend especially gives hope to small online retailers that cannot compete on price, because smaller companies should normally have an advantage in customer satisfaction."

I think, that blogs, are one way to give smaller companies and individuals a chance to excel, with user generated content leading the way:

"…If price continues to lose ground to other factors, this trend toward monopolization could reverse and open up new opportunities for online retailers. Let’s hope that happens soon."

Up too late, time for bed.