In the maelstrom of the dotcom days a lot of heady deals were done in time periods too short, surrounded by too much hype and too little strategy. The result was corporate debris with globally presented brands that were disjointed behind the scenes. Yahoo, NBC, AOL all paid the price, while companies like Google, Amazon and eBay kept clean globalized corporate structures. The thing is that competitive advantage in the digital networked economy is all about massive economies of scale. The firms that didn’t get this always had their hands tied. That’s why this week’s takeover of Lycos (Europe) – by Lycos – is long, long overdue. The collapsed European entity struggled painfully against the might of the consolidated global apps of its competitors. One chapter finally closed, but the next chapter is the toughest nut to crack: in a post social media landscape, where do you position another portal?
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