Digital Darwinism: 7 Breakthrough Business Strategies for Surviving in the Cutthroat Web Economy [Paperback]

Evan I. Schwartz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 7, 2001

Don’t let the rapid evolution of the Internet economy leave your business extinct before its time! Here are the key strategies you need to keep your company alive, growing, and profitable in today’s volatile Web climate.

The dramatic boom that took place in the Web economy is over. The glory days when companies with strong ideas and weak business plans could easily get millions to launch their businesses are long gone, and in today’s tougher, more cutthroat economic arena, natural selection is rampant. Companies need to be smarter, faster, more innovative, and more adaptable than ever before just to survive, let alone succeed. In Digital Darwinism, Evan Schwartz provides seven business strategies that can make or break any Web business. In a new preface and updated case studies, Schwartz discusses the dramatic rise and fall of the Web and analyzes the companies that have made it and those that haven’t, from Priceline to Pets.com, and spells out step-by-step techniques such as building your brand, remaining flexible as supply and demand fluctuate, and integrating the Web into every part of your business.

The perfect source for everyone from novice entrepreneurs to corporate CEOs, Digital Darwinism provides a comprehensive and unflinching look inside the highly competitive world of e-commerce and distills the critical strategies that Web-based businesses need to follow in order to survive in what has become the world’s fastest, and most dangerous, marketplace.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Over the last few years, the big bang of the World Wide Web has shaken the realm of commerce. Today on the Internet, you can get everything from phone numbers and dancing babies to golf clubs and custom-built computers. Some of these Web sites are businesses that found their genesis in the advent of the Web itself, while others are longstanding companies trying to adapt to the reality of this new digital marketplace. Who will survive and who will be rendered extinct? That's what Evan I. Schwartz tries to answer by dipping into the Internet's "primordial soup" to discover the characteristics of the winners that will eventually emerge.

In Digital Darwinism, Schwartz identifies seven strategies that will separate the winners from the losers. These include building a brand that stands for solving something, elastic pricing, affiliate partnerships, and integrating digital commerce with every aspect of business. Schwartz buttresses his arguments with analysis of dozens of companies already competing on the Internet, including Yahoo!, Peapod, Priceline, E*Trade, Dell Computer, and Recreational Equipment, Inc. Schwartz views these early years of the Web as largely "irrational," but anticipates a general rationalization. He writes, "As each successive generation of Web commerce passes, there will be more rational companies and fewer irrational ones, more fit business models and fewer unfit ones. In the future, there may be no such thing as an Internet company. The Internet is becoming so important that all companies will eventually become Internet companies."

Like his previous book, Webonomics, Digital Darwinism is succinct and easy to read. His analysis of the current state of Internet startups, their stock prices, and their probable fate is provocative, especially when viewed from a Darwinian perspective. For managers, investors, and anyone interested in Internet commerce. Recommended. --Harry C. Edwards --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"Seven strategies will separate the winners from the losers."
--Dallas Business Journal

"Lively and engaging... Schwartz’s method is admirably inductive... keep[ing] the focus on real people dealing with practical problems."
--Ernst and Young Management Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; Rev Upd edition (August 7, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076790334X
• ISBN-13: 978-0767903349
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,339,708 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Evan I. Schwartz tells tales of invention and imagination. A former award-winning editor at BusinessWeek, he is also the author of THE LAST LONE INVENTOR, named one of the 75 best business books of all-time by Fortune. He lives with his family in New England. The idea for FINDING OZ came to him while reading L. Frank Baum's classic novel out loud to his daughter at bedtime.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

63 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Just a General Guideline, December 1, 1999

By 

Eric Chuang - See all my reviews

This review is from: Digital Darwinism (Hardcover)

I consider this book to be a general guideline for new comers to the networked industry. This book does not provide thorough examinations drawn from successful and/or unsuccessful examples, nor does it give the reader critical analyses to back up the writer¡¦s own point of view. What we get from this book is a set of rules, reminders, and assumptions which is not practical enough in my opinion, and perhaps only good enough for those who first come to the newly developed internet industry.

The idea to link biological Darwinism with industrial Darwinism to explain how the fittest survives in highly competitive business environment is not a new thing. People who have had a certain degree of understanding about it will be disappointed as the writer goes all the way to explain what they have already known. People who have been close enough to the development of the internet industry will find this book uncreative. People who have already been in this business for some time will not be inspired by this book, but most likely be bored by its dragging explanation of how ¡§the fittest survives¡¨¡Xa concept these people probably have already known.

Although this book only provides a set of generalized ideas, ¡§7 Breakthrough Business Strategies for Surviving in the Cutthroat Web Economy¡¨ as its subtitle describes, it can be seen as quite a handy book. At the end of every chapter is a brief reminder of how certain problems can be solved. This may be a streak of help when the manager is buried by overloaded work and forgets where he stands. This book is helpful, too, for those who newly come into contact with the industrial side of the internet.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars e-commerce, shme-commerce, August 17, 1999

By 

Unfrozen Caveman Bookseller "diskwento_libro" (New Hampshire) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Digital Darwinism (Hardcover)

The catchy title is just a title, and it drew me in to a fun and fantastic read. A bright spot is the examples of entrepreneurs (the real E in e-commerce) finding the Web as an ally in contrast to examples of subsided businesses that relied solely on the Web and Web hype (those with a hammer always seeking a nail; those with a computer seeing business as data). Includes keen admonishments toward certain companies that tout the Web yet deny Web-users access to their products or services (initials are B&N, CompUSA). The lesson delivered is not in the list that frothed to the top but the personalities behind the steps, along with some vernacular mixed in with good narrative. (Dell newbies attentive to low badge numbers; Seven Cycle chapter alone could inspire someone to just start a business; REI chapter makes me want to try out their store.) Nowadays companies with Web sites scream customer-service-this, customer-service-that.... The brightest spot in this book is the back-to-the-future (back to the past?) notion of customers driving business, people service, craft, artisan and manufacturing jobs instead of automation--people can do this kind of thing since the Web allows efficiency (customized products) so companies aren't concerned so much about stocking warehouses as entrepreneurship. Nowadays companies with Web sites tout "customer- service-this, customer-service-that." This book will show why that phrase appears on some companies as a glossy add-on, and why on others it stands for delivering to the customer.

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What was the point?, March 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Digital Darwinism (Hardcover)

With a title like Digital Darwinism: etc. etc. one is set with the expectation that this book is a kind of silver bullet. But the question is for whom? Throughout the book I had a constant feeling of a big so what? Who is the audience here? Certainly not me and I am not a player in the web economy. Yet. I certainly neither absorbed nor abstracted anything more that I have from the examples that proliferate through reading profiles in quality business journals or talking to business colleagues. Perhaps maybe an artsie-but non-techno-literate-I-wanna-know person would find it appealing?

Aside from this, the book is written in a style that is supposed to engage through permitting the reader to abstract it's key messages from storylines. I felt that it uses a set the scene, stream of consciouness, I am going to tell you a story style that makes Europeans sometimes nauseous and feeling "just get to the point please, the book is small enough!".

Go for a book that's not hyped-up from the start and delivers a simple structure for your mind to frame concepts, remember points for further reference and doesn't state the obvious.