I have relocated two weeks ago:
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Don’t think this was an easy job! Just 45 meters, but on foot with boxes full of my computer, science and philosophy books we (Peter and Mirj, who are friends of mine and starting their own web company, and my girlfriend and me) worked up a sweat! Remember, the winters in Germany are cold! Now, we are living in a new home with a bigger workroom, but without a kitchen yet. No problem: we have nice friends who invite us to dinner.

Fritz did it, too. Btw: it was very delicious. Fritz is the face and brain behind bootsektor, a (or at least my) famous German blog about computers, the media industry and everything else. And he is my neighbour: he lives about 30 meters away from us. Finally, he was my boss during a project titled “Second Life Testlab”. We (Andi and I) build a Second Life building where we published reviews of virtual products and exhibited the reviewed products.

Fritz has a fascinating history in the media industry: as a musician he was a media producer. Then he wrote articles and blog posts about people and products from the music, the game and the computer industry. So the evening the dinner took place we also talked about content and how to bring it to market. (Another topic was Ikea, because he had the same kitchen, we bought a few days before! He gave us hints how to use the “Ikea modular platform” best.) Fritz isn’t a fan of paid content, DRM and all that stuff, but of DRM-free music, Open Content etc. Finally, I explained him our business idea and he said: “You sell service on content. That’s gonna work.”.

He was right: we do not sell content, because the value of content is zero in the Internet Age. With every copy the value of the original content decreases and with an infinite number of potential copies its value is zero. We sell services on content and people love service! Service means you know what the customer needs or wants and provide him the individual solution to his particular problem. Take Ikea for example: you are standing before a rack and you’ll find next to the rack wood paint and next to the wood paint you find sandpaper. That’s service! They don’t sell furniture, Ikea sells services.

Nevertheless, furniture is the key element of Ikea. The same is true for most media or Internet companies: content is the attractor of any website, but its adhesive is the service. The content is captured by search engines and the content is the reason why people visit the web. However, most content is not limited to one website, so you need a reason why people visit your website in particular. This reason are the services on the content you offer.

Huuh, quite a long post this time :) Have a good time!

PS: Thanks to our relocation and beyond helpers: Mirj, Peter, Ursula, Werner, Hans, Gerti, Stefan, Iris, Karen, Matze, Philipp, Ralf, Holger, Jutta, Richard, Annette, Michael and Fritz.