MagBlog

Reading a Guardian Money article about the online retailer triggered a question: what would be the media equivalent of Amazon?
This was the specific paragraph that got me thinking:

It suggests that shopping around the net in the traditional way - searching out the cheapest price for each individual purchase at price comparison websites and then ordering from a raft of different retailers - may now be redundant. Many online competitors have decided that if you can't beat them, join them. Amazon invites other retailers into its "marketplace", allowing it to offer prices that, even if they are not sourced by Amazon itself, are some of the cheapest on the net. Rival Pixmania.com now sells through Amazon, while Marks & Spencer and Mothercare have subcontracted Amazon to power their own websites.

So far I have not developed the thought at all but I can say that the equivalent would not be like a "portal", even though the principle could be interpreted that way. It's probably closer to Sky or Freeview, a service that offers many other services; a one-stop point of choice.

Perhaps it's yet another of Jeff Jarvis's "we'll know what to call it when we see it" phenomena.

(Uh oh - when finding the link to Jarvis's piece I also found this about a new aggregator-portal: Jarvis seems to be involved with the project in some way too.)

Labels: aggregation, aggregator, amazon, development, digital revenue, Guardian Money, jeff jarvis, mashup, online