We are getting e-mail from our mothers, reading our grandparents' newsgroup posts and viewing pages outlining our kids' homework assignments for the week. We are also getting used to looking over our shoulders at the competition to see what's on their sites. After all, we need to know what it's going to take to keep up with the Joneses. What we haven't gotten used to is the idea that we need to step outside our industries from time to time and look for innovations all over the map. Information is good.
Content is great.
But for the small guy, the real edge comes from the ability to turn on a paradigm and offer a unique service. Business Models Are a Paradigm a Dozen I have yet to have a conversation about the Internet with an intelligent human and not come up with an idea for a new Web-based business. Not a rehash of offline businesses. I mean really new ideas that truly exploit the unique properties of the Web. Online collectors' baseball card auction.