Will Small Business GAFA Compliance Change to GAFU?

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December 24, 2013

By Bob Coleman
Editor, Coleman Report

uberHere’s a light, thought provoking pre-Christmas holiday case study you will enjoy.

I’ve written in the past how Main Street must be GAFA compliant to compete in today’s ever changing economy.

G – Having a Google search engine strategy

A – Having an Apple mobile apps strategy

F – Having a Facebook and social media strategy

A – Having a strategy to compete with Amazon’s one-click website.

It seems Main Street now needs to be aware of Uber – the car service where you can order a prius or town car with an app.

The question the New York magazine poses is what will happen when Uber morphs from delivering on-time car services, to delivering any product – quickly, and on the same day?

From the New York Magazine….

So, step one: Take over taxi industry. Step two: Kill ownership. From there, who knows what could happen in the long term? Uber could start using self-driving cars made by Google (one of its investors) to eliminate the need for human drivers, driving down its costs even more. It could introduce a near-instantaneous delivery service to rival Amazon’s drones. It could roll out a subscription service, akin to Amazon Prime, that would include perks like predictive transportation, so that, for example, when Uber sees an appointment on your Google calendar for a cross-town meeting, it sends a car to your office automatically at the right time. There’s no reason that other companies couldn’t try to do these things, too. But Uber has first-mover advantage, and it’s got most of the kinks – customer interface, payment, fleet management, supply-and-demand considerations – worked out already, making it a prime candidate to beat competitors to new product areas.

The result of Uber’s efforts, in other words, could be the creation of a techno-metropolis, in which people and goods are ferreted around seamlessly and, perhaps, automatically. It would be like something out of a sci-fi movie. And Uber would be standing at the center of it all, collecting a cut of every transaction.

Read the entire article here

Enjoy your Christmas Holiday Season