The Hare and the Tortoise

That's what comes to my mind looking at Google and Amazon today. Amazon has been building it's business and brand much longer than Google. Google gets the most attention and it's rise is much steeper than Amazon's. Amazon is all about delivering physical goods (the old way - shipping them to your door). And Google is all about delivering what cannot be touched - information. You can have other parallels for these two as well. Look at manufacturing and services industries. Walmart which is a purely services company topped the Fortune 500 list for several consequtive years overshadowing the big heavyweight manufacturing giants like General Motors and Ford. Walmart does not produce anything. It is just a delivery channel. This is quite similar to what currently we see with Amazon and Google.

The point I am trying to make is to underscore Amazon (not Google :) By being persistent in doing the old mundane things much much better in the new world Amazon is showing how tomorrow's business will be done using technology. It is not that Amazon is the only company doing that. But Amazon is the best available proxy to those kind of companies. I have been using Amazon for almost 8 years now. And even today the most things I buy from them are books and nothing else. But in my mind the barrier to entry for doing business with Amazon is today almost negligible. For me Amazon is as good or even better than the store a few blocks from my home. And with the variety of products that Amazon is keeping today it is just a matter of time that I would be doing most of my buying from there. I am not doing it today, but I can see the day coming.

A few days ago I bought two books from Borders because I just couldn't wait for them to be shipped and delivered. No not even overnight although I would have been ready to pay for it. I wanted the books NOW! So I paid about 120 bucks for the books. I had already researched the books on Amazon. The Amazon price for the two books was a mere 70 bucks. I had no choice but to return those books back to Borders and get them from Amazon. Which I did.

Okay I have to disclose that I do own a few shares of Amazon as well as Google. But I am not writing this post to drive people to buy Amazon. Please be your own judge and do your own research. Both Amazon and Google are companies who are going to shape the world we live in.