Question

With the current technology boom, some argue that we are living in a "modern day gold rush." Is it true?

Answer 1

• I believe its true,technology is everywhere now,in our homes,in our offices,educational insititutions. Information has become easily accessible and its everywhere. Right from finding a place to eat to shop something or find out the latest market trends everything has been made easy through technology.
• The Platform Boom is all around us but you may not have given it a name yet. It is the rise of platform systems that are changing the way markets are operating. No longer do you need to be a player in a market to be able to participate in it. In fact it is the innovative thinkers that are using technology to turn markets upside down and change everything we know about them. Uber, AirBNB and the countless websites and apps that are springing to life about as fast as you can imagine them.
• The next gold rush is Platforms. They will require investment, focus, commitment and an intricate knowledge of the ecosystem that you are planning to play in. These are big land grabs for entire sectors and will leave many traditional players left shaking their heads wondering what happened to their business models.
• The Platform Boom is creating new playing fields for new entrants and entrepreneurs and lowering the barrier of entry for startups with new ideas.
• Technological progress has made it much simpler and cheaper to try out myriad bright ideas for online businesses. A new breed of rich investors has been keen to back those ideas. This boom is much more global, Chinese internet firms are causing as much excitement as American ones.Some of today's tablet computers and smartphones are more powerful than personal computers were a decade ago.
• These technological trends have given rise to new “platforms”—computing bases on which other companies can build services. Examples include operating systems for smartphones and social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Some of them are used by hundreds of millions of people. And the platforms are generating oceans of data from smartphones, sensors and other devices.
• These platforms are vast spaces of digital opportunity. Perhaps the most striking example of the innovation they have sparked is the outpouring of downloadable software applications, or “apps”, for smartphones and computers. Apple's App Store, offers more than 300,000 of them. Users of Facebook are installing them at a rate of 20m a day. Services such as Skype have also benefited from the spread of smart devices and lightning-fast connectivity.
• Creating a web firm has become much easier. By tapping into cheap cloud-computing capacity and by using platforms to reach millions of potential customers, a company can be up and running for thousands of dollars rather than the millions needed in the 1990s.