Here's a great business article

Hi Garry,

Thanks for sharing your experiences in providing content management software to car dealers....

I've recently been re-reading some writings by Paul Zane Pilzer - specifically, his book "Unlimited Wealth".

Anyhow, his view is that there are always business opportunities in the area where there are "Ready-to-Implement Technologies" (R-I-Ts), which haven't been fully implemented yet....

By a "Ready-to-Implement Technology" (R-I-T), he means a technology which has developed to the stage where it's reliable, can be used easily (with the same difficulty or less difficulty as whatever it's replacing), and which will essentially make money (or time) or save money (or time) for whoever is using it....

It's interesting to think about this issue regarding content management software (like phpWebsite).... As you probably know, Bill Myers was selling his own specialized membership content management software, MemberGate, for $30,000 each a couple of years ago, mostly to big businesses.... It seems to combine a whole range of features, such as content management software, membership support software, and discussion forum software....

Thanks for mentioning phpWebsite.... I also found more content management systems here and here.... I bet some are more "user-friendly" than others are....

I'm still thinking through these issues myself, though. Where is the opportunity in new technology? Paul Zane Pilzer believes it's in the area where R-I-Ts have been developed, but haven't yet been widely adopted by people. He applied this theory himself, by starting an educational CD-ROM publishing business in the 1980s when CD-ROMs were still pretty new - I think it was a big success. So I think his theory probably has some merit!

Another thing Paul Zane Pilzer mentions is his theory of consumer behavior.... He says that when people get enough of something for themselves, they don't stop buying.... What they do is, instead of looking for quantity, they start looking for quality, or maybe things which will fit their specialized needs better.

For example, back in the days of the Ford Model-T automobile, you could get a Model-T in any color, as long as it was black! But, when people had a car or two, they didn't stop buying cars - instead, they started buying cars which had different colors. As time went by, people didn't ever stop buying cars, they then buy "specialized" cars like sports cars, 4-wheel-drive vehicles, RVs, and so on. I'm sure you've heard of people like Jay Leno, who owns something like 85 cars!

Given this pattern, even if everyone has content management software, what will they look for? People will probably then gravitate towards more specialized content management software.... Perhaps software optimized for car dealers, or optimized for retail store owners, or optimized for family web sites - that kind of thing. I think that's where the trend will eventually go.... The opportunity (if you are able to develop software) could be to jump on this early.

You can see Bill Myers followed this approach (probably intentionally). His software is specialized - it's for membership web sites specifically. He went for the niche right from the beginning.... I think the general trend with new technology will usually be towards products which are more and more specialized towards a "niche" market....

But where will this go? I'm sure the future trends for membership software will be for more specialized membership software - such as for clubs and organizations specifically (to facilitate communication of the members with each other), or for newsletter/magazine subscribers specifically, or something like that....

Anyhow, it's food for thought.... :)

- Dien Rice