Rating: 
Summary: A different approach to ecommerce than any books of the kind
Review: Most of the books on the subject like customer.com, webnomoics etc. is like a statistical survey of the CURRENT successful companies and summaries their successful charateristics. The reason that I like this book is that it starts from asking fundamental questions of what is the internet capable and hence how does it affect the fundamental relationship between the vendors and consumers? Given that arise the new business model conceptualized as "infomediaries" and hence its step to succeed, its economical, social, legal impacts. With this approach, the reader can gain insight to the future and not just the successful factors of the CURRENT status. What I dont like about this book is that its assumption are over-simplified and not well discussed. How would changes in such assumptions affect the informediaries? Besides, this business model focused on the information flow between consumer and vendors and hence its results. What about the the implication to say goods, materials, capital flows as a result? While I like the approach of the authors, I also questions the limitation of the book as the authors also admitted that there are many other valid business models.
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Summary: An example of iterative, redundant, prolix, verbosity
Review: Net Worth disappoints readers with its bloated descriptions and terribly narrow vision about the rise of 'infomediaries' on the web. This is an unfortunate production from two principals of McKinsey, the nation's leading strategy consulting firm which has a reputation for collecting the finest business minds in the country. Regardless of their intellectual prowess, the authors evince little knowledge of the current state of e-commerce and infomediary progenitors (i.e. Flycast or MyPoints.com); in addition, numbers are conjured as if from witchcraft to support their points. The authors describe infomediaries as both privacy providers for clients and collators of tremendous consumer information for both producers and consumers; according to their premise, infomediaries are indicative of the growing power of the consumer through the use of the Internet. While some of their concepts are derived from actual experience, the majority of their discussion remains theoretical and without experiential support. Their prolix style and constant iterative use of simplistic examples takes away from what could have been an interesting abstract treatise on a potential web-based venture.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating but not relevant today
Review: Net Worth is a fascinating discussion of how the future will evolve. I agree with the authors that "infomediaries" of some kind will develop. Unfortunately, the book is not relevant for someone like me, who is trying to deal with massive business changes the Internet is causing today. I found HyperWars, by Bruce Judson and Kate Kelly to be far more significant for someone like me who needs relevant advice today. Compared to Hagel's Net Worth, Judson and Kelly's HyperWars strikes a much better balance of theory about emerging issues and guidance about what to do now.
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Summary: Groundbreaking new book on the New Economy
Review: Net Worth is an important new book that predicts a coming revolution in marketing. In this thought-provoking book, Hagel and Singer describe a new type of business they call an "infomediary" which serves as an intermediary in the buying and selling of personal information. According to the authors, these infomediaries will topple the existing marketing power structures by giving the power of the markets to the people, not the marketers. These infomediaries will allow customers to demand payment for information and for access... a notion that's sure to go against the grain of standard marketing practices. But the book does an excellent job of showing how the current system of consumer marketing actually alienates the very customers that it's meant to reach, and how that has backfired for the companies doing the marketing. Net Worth provides an enlightened view of how to fix the problem using the massive power of the Internet. All companies -- not just Internet companies -- will find it helpful to understand how intermediaries can help them market more effectively. And Internet watchers will be especially impressed by the well thought out presentation of a major New Economy paradigm. Bottom line: if you're interested in the future of marketing this book is a must-read!
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Summary: Extremely detailed attack plan for infomediarie business
Review: Net Worth is not for the summary reader. It provides strong detail on the why's and how's of the information revolution being created by today's privacy concerns. As evident in the book and the press the infomediary concept is more than a theory but a real business. I recommend this book to anyone considering the infomediary business or current providers of data or marketing solutions.
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Summary: Net Worth - a worthwhile read
Review: Net Worth John Hagel III and Marc Singer Net Worth is relevant to three very different audiences. To business leaders in perhaps fifty large and mature businesses, not yet publicly associated with innovation on the Net , it provides a detailed plan for building a $4bn turnover businesss within ten years, by dominating a new business category, that of 'infomediary'. Achieving category dominance has high initial investment costs but, particularly in relation to other Net business lines, it is genuinely a category where winner takes all and with highly attractive barriers to new competitors. To database marketers, to vendors of consumer data and to CRM specialists, it sets out the very different model which the Net will create in the way consumer data are accessed, used and profitably traded. To the generalist reader of business titles it offers a clear and challenging argument as to why, to survive, most businesses will have to focus much more selectively on a much narrower section of the value chain than they currently attempt to cover. Despite its title, I suspect that Net Worth has little to say to those whose interest in the Internet is as a tool for delivering information to consumers. Its focus is on the Internet as a tool for generating information about consumers. But do not think you couldn't profit from this book just because you are not an e-commerce specialist.. A sequel to Net Gain The authors are consultants at McKinsey & Co. For one, John Hagel, Net Worth represents the evolution of a thought process begun in Net Gain. The thought process is an original one - it does not seem to borrow on other academic literature - but it is clear that the authors have benefited from much collective pondering on the part of McKinsey as to where equity value is most likely to be gained in an Internet-enabled world. Polemical clarity The style is neither that of an academic or of a practitioner. To some it may seem too much a polemic. At times it is as though you are reading transcripts of board level management presentations. You are bludgeoned rather than seduced. There is little room for uncertainty - other than who will win the prize - and none for humour. Full marks, however, for the clarity of the text and of the argument. Copyright, intersetingly, is vested in McKinsey. The Net Worth thesis is built on a clearly articulated model. In this model companies will in the future increasingly specialise in particular stages of the value chain, in innovation within the production of specific consumer services, almost as commodities; in the manner in which these products and services are communicated to, and delivered in customised form to meet the increasingly specific demands and circumstances of, individual customers; and in infrastructure support services which will become increasingly standardised. Innovation, customisation and cost reduction will be the core qualities needed by successful companies in these three stages of the value chain. Customer profiles The 'customisers', who specialise in the management of the customer relationship, will have at the core of their business proposition the leveraging of information on consumers, or customer 'profiles'. To deliver effective personalisation and satisfy increasingly demanding consumers, these organisations will need to operate across multiple product categories. In addition, they will increasingly rely on their ability to gain the active endorsement of the consumer for access to and use of their web usage as well as demographic and product purchasing characteristics. Expertise in the manipulation of these data to provide tailored services to both consumers and to potential providers will be their key competence. Infomediaries To the consumer, allowing a trusted infomediary to consolidate their personal profile into a single data source has a number of attractions. It reduces the number of times common personal attributes have to be made available to suppliers. Assuming the infomediary can be trusted, it reduces the concerns over privacy and misuse of personal data. By interposing between the consumer and providers, the infomediary can negotiate better terms with suppliers; can require them to customise their offers in such a way as to better meet the needs of groups of consumers with similar needs; can enforce controls to suppress irrelevant communication, and conversely can initiate relevant proactive communications. In an era when the consumer is increasingly unwilling to offer personal information without exacting a price, and when most companies lack the expertise to pattern existing data into sensible communication strategies, such a shift would offer benefits all round. A frictionless market? Few readers would find flaws in this logic, other than the touchingly Benthamite faith in the extent to which rational self-interest can be relied on to drive consumer behaviour into a world in which brand values - other than those of the trusted infomediary of course - would increasingly wither away. Hagel and Singer's heaven is a totally frictionless market - which marks them out as inhabitants of the Net world rather than that of Madison Square. Outsourcing Whatever companies' ambitions to relive past glories, Hagel and Singer are particularly compelling when they argue how, in an increasingly complex business world, companies cannot survive unless they develop management cultures appropriate to the positions in the value chain they want to fill, and that the contrasting cultures for each position are becoming increasingly difficult for any single organisation to nurture and sustain within a single operation. From outsourcing the canteen and the cleaning, and then the manufacturing of assembled components, it may not be absurd for Ford to move to the outsourcing of the entire manufacturing process, but not the design, while it positions itself to the consumer as the relationship manager for all consumer (and business) needs associated with the funding, provision, insurance and maintenance of personal transportation needs. The benefits of scale The other proposition I found compelling - as one might expect from McKinsey employees - was that, unlike other Internet businesses, many of which suffer from very low entry barriers and attempt to replicate traditional businesses but in more frictionless and hence lower cost forms - the position of an infomediary was more akin to the owner of an operating system in terms of benefits of scale. The more customers you have persuaded to trust you with their data, the greater your commercial influence with suppliers on their behalf. The more producers you deal with, the greater the width of data you build up on your consumer customers, and the more attractive you become to them. The more they deal through you, and the longer your relationship, the richer becomes your database and the more difficult it becomes for competitors to provide your customers with a service of equal value. Such dynamics do not apply to the same degree to individual sites or to portals, or indeed to suppliers of 'old world' products and services. Given the pace of change in the world of e-commerce, you might suppose that the Net Worth thesis could increasingly be justified or refuted by market events in the 18 months since its original conception. Other than Scoot I cannot at present identify any aspirant European infomediary as would be defined by Hagel and Singer. However, in markets such as financial services, utilities, cars, home buying and travel, in the UK at least, we are daily witnessing the decomposition of the traditional value chain as predicted. What is foretold in this book is, I'm confident, a long-term shift, and I would hazard that evidence so far supports rather than refutes the arguments it sets out. In summary, a worthwhile read. You don't have to read it all, or read it in any particular sequence. Better read in a train or plane than at home or on holiday. Richard Webber FIDM Managing Director Micromarketing Division, Experian, UK This review was published in the Journal - Interactive Marketing. www.henrystewart.com/journals/im
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Summary: Book Summary & Comments
Review: Net Worth predicts how markets will change because of the Internet. Infomediation is what it calls the new way of matching buyers and sellers. An infomediary is a website that helps buyers find what they need. It knows more about the consumer than any existing marketing department does today. This complete picture of consumer desire allows the infomediary to target just the right advertisements at consumers. Infomediaries will replace junk mail. They will be much more like a dating service in that they will match buyers and sellers based on what they need and have to offer. Buyers will love it because they won't get annoying irrelevant ads. Sellers will love it because they'll find customers that are easy to please because they are the right fit. Sellers can also spend their marketing budgets on other more useful things like R&D. Net Worth argues that the infomediary model will generally reduce market inefficiencies, for example informing consumers of fair market prices. The new model also eliminates the behavioral misalignment between marketers and consumers. That is, marketers want to increase repeat-business, but consumers want to increase choice. An infomediary helps marketers know what choices consumers want, and its wealth of product information maximizes the number of choices the consumer has. Net Worth is a crystal ball that spells out how markets will shift toward infomediation. It identifies two broad categories of potential players: traditional businesses and Internet start-ups. Both categories are further refined into several types of businesses along with what benefits and disadvantages each has as an infomediary play. The most likely success story will be a traditional business that invests in a start-up and gives that start-up access to its immense customer data. There will be three stages to the formation of an infomediary. The first stage is to develop consumer trust and data. That is where the reputation and database of the traditional business comes into play. Second, suppliers standardize on a way to describe their products. It will require economic incentive for suppliers to standardize on the proverbial price tag (XML: <price>$0.02</price>), because consumers will be able to price shop more easily. Infomediaries represent a significant number of consumers at the second stage, so suppliers are motivated to standardize their data because they can target ads at those consumers. Finally, the economic phenomena of Network Effect and Lock-In help set in motion a "virtuous cycle" of growth: consumers flock to the infomediary because they can get discounts and better product reviews and the infomediary learns more so the consumers enjoy and flock more. The last third of the book is the most interesting, because it describes how "disintermediation" is really "re-intermediation". The Internet is not going to cut out the equivalent of travel agencies in every industry. Instead, value chains will reorganize and create NEW middleman roles. The roles correspond to the best opportunities for leveraging economies of scale. The roles are as follows. 1-Infomediaries gather all possible information about consumers. In today's world this is like a sales rep, but in tomorrow's world that sales rep would have knowledge of all customers of all products in the universe. 2-Innovator companies analyze infomediary data to invent new products that satisfy emerging needs. In today's world this is the marketing department, but in tomorrow's world the marketing department would have access to all relevant data in the universe. 3-Infrastructure companies will build what the innovator companies say. This is out-sourcing to the extreme. Infrastructure companies may own just one extremely large and extremely expensive piece of equipment. By keeping that machine at full capacity, the overall market benefits from the economy of scale. The most interesting thing in the whole book is a paradox about how infomediaries will create a monopoly that the government will have a hard time dismantling. Consumers benefit most from an infomediary if all consumers use that infomediary and no consumer uses another infomediary. The infomediary's database is maximized, and so consumers get the best advice. Monopoly is defined as a business that hurts the free-market system by eliminating consumer choice. However, consumers gain maximum benefit when they have the smallest choice of infomediaries. Furthermore, infomediation's mission is to maximize consumer choice and continually advocate consumer interest. So will infomediaries be seen as monopolies? Plenty of other reviewers poo-poo'd Net Worth. I think the book is visionary though. At the beginning of 2000, I already started hearing commercials for infomediaries. I'd give this book more stars, but honestly I've read more visionary stuff before.
Rating:
Summary: Book Summary & Comments
Review: Net Worth predicts how markets will change because of the Internet. Infomediation is what it calls the new way of matching buyers and sellers. An infomediary is a website that helps buyers find what they need. It knows more about the consumer than any existing marketing department does today. This complete picture of consumer desire allows the infomediary to target just the right advertisements at consumers. Infomediaries will replace junk mail. They will be much more like a dating service in that they will match buyers and sellers based on what they need and have to offer. Buyers will love it because they won't get annoying irrelevant ads. Sellers will love it because they'll find customers that are easy to please because they are the right fit. Sellers can also spend their marketing budgets on other more useful things like R&D. Net Worth argues that the infomediary model will generally reduce market inefficiencies, for example informing consumers of fair market prices. The new model also eliminates the behavioral misalignment between marketers and consumers. That is, marketers want to increase repeat-business, but consumers want to increase choice. An infomediary helps marketers know what choices consumers want, and its wealth of product information maximizes the number of choices the consumer has. Net Worth is a crystal ball that spells out how markets will shift toward infomediation. It identifies two broad categories of potential players: traditional businesses and Internet start-ups. Both categories are further refined into several types of businesses along with what benefits and disadvantages each has as an infomediary play. The most likely success story will be a traditional business that invests in a start-up and gives that start-up access to its immense customer data. There will be three stages to the formation of an infomediary. The first stage is to develop consumer trust and data. That is where the reputation and database of the traditional business comes into play. Second, suppliers standardize on a way to describe their products. It will require economic incentive for suppliers to standardize on the proverbial price tag (XML: <price>$0.02</price>), because consumers will be able to price shop more easily. Infomediaries represent a significant number of consumers at the second stage, so suppliers are motivated to standardize their data because they can target ads at those consumers. Finally, the economic phenomena of Network Effect and Lock-In help set in motion a "virtuous cycle" of growth: consumers flock to the infomediary because they can get discounts and better product reviews and the infomediary learns more so the consumers enjoy and flock more. The last third of the book is the most interesting, because it describes how "disintermediation" is really "re-intermediation". The Internet is not going to cut out the equivalent of travel agencies in every industry. Instead, value chains will reorganize and create NEW middleman roles. The roles correspond to the best opportunities for leveraging economies of scale. The roles are as follows. 1-Infomediaries gather all possible information about consumers. In today's world this is like a sales rep, but in tomorrow's world that sales rep would have knowledge of all customers of all products in the universe. 2-Innovator companies analyze infomediary data to invent new products that satisfy emerging needs. In today's world this is the marketing department, but in tomorrow's world the marketing department would have access to all relevant data in the universe. 3-Infrastructure companies will build what the innovator companies say. This is out-sourcing to the extreme. Infrastructure companies may own just one extremely large and extremely expensive piece of equipment. By keeping that machine at full capacity, the overall market benefits from the economy of scale. The most interesting thing in the whole book is a paradox about how infomediaries will create a monopoly that the government will have a hard time dismantling. Consumers benefit most from an infomediary if all consumers use that infomediary and no consumer uses another infomediary. The infomediary's database is maximized, and so consumers get the best advice. Monopoly is defined as a business that hurts the free-market system by eliminating consumer choice. However, consumers gain maximum benefit when they have the smallest choice of infomediaries. Furthermore, infomediation's mission is to maximize consumer choice and continually advocate consumer interest. So will infomediaries be seen as monopolies? Plenty of other reviewers poo-poo'd Net Worth. I think the book is visionary though. At the beginning of 2000, I already started hearing commercials for infomediaries. I'd give this book more stars, but honestly I've read more visionary stuff before.
Rating:
Summary: An Internet professional's "must read" book.
Review: Once again, Hagel (now w/new co-writer Marc Singer) have captured the essence of what's happening on the Internet. It was only two months after the release of Net Gain (Hagel's first book), that AOL did the first mega-million ($100M) dollar deal with Tel-Save, that demonstrated the concepts he was espousing in that book. Now it's to wonder who the first true infomediary will be. Net Worth is an important book for anyone working in the Internet space or wanting to understand what's happening and what the relevance of these significant consolidations are, (ie. Yahoo!/GeoCities, USA Networks/Lycos, Disney/Infoseek, AOL/ICQ, etc.) Net Worth is an easy and pleasant read that will stimulate any reader's desire to begin dabbling online whether through an Internet company or the market. It offers the kind of insider's perspective necessary to succeed in the space. Once again, Hagel is providing a road map to what is right around the corner and the importance of these changes to the various communities impacted by them.
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Summary: Conceptually appealing; difficult to usefully apply
Review: The authors discuss a model of how increasing importance of information increases importance of "infomediaries" - companies that have the trust and info of consumers and search out good deals on their behalf. I'm hard pressed to apply the concepts in a useful way, though ...
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