Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook

I saw the cover of the magazine Fast Company, and it said to lookout, Facebook will beat Amazon, Apple, and Google.

(Clever folks: There were three other covers, each touting how one of the four companies will prevail. They sort of managed to get more shelf space at Whole Foods.)

But far more interesting is the list of four companies:

  • Apple (originally a computer manufacturer),
  • Amazon (originally an online book retailer),
  • Google (originally a web search engine), and
  • Facebook (still a social network).

How do computers, books, searches, and friending end up at each others’ throats? And how did we come to ignore Dell, Barnes and Noble, Yahoo, and AOL??

Dell vs. Apple? Not interesting. (Should Dell just liquidate and give the investors their money back?)

B&N vs. Amazon? Not interesting.

Yahoo vs. Google? Not interesting.

AOL (or maybe Myspace) vs. Facebook? Not interesting.

How did these other companies become such losers? What makes these Big Four so important?


©2011 Kent Borg

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