Ecosystems and Early Adopters

One of the big buzzwords at the moment surrounding mobile devices is the ecosystem. Simply put, an ecosystem (as far as a specific technology is concerned) refers to an interconnected collection of users, devices, software and applications. Ecosystems can spring up around a particular device (e.g. the iPhone, with its apps, evangelical users, plug-in devices and accessories) or around a specific platform (e.g. Android, running on various 3rd party device manufacturers, PCs, etc.). Last week, Nokia - having taken a kicking in recent months from Apple and Google - announced a strategic tie-up with Microsoft, citing ecosystems and the failure of their own Symbian operating system to compete against others.

None of this is new of course. Go back 20 years and the 'ecosystem' was all based around Microsoft Windows...only in those days it was characterised in terms of gatekeepers, and when the Web came along, Microsoft fought off Netscape brilliantly to become the 'gatekeeper' of web content through their browsers.

Anyone trading on the high street of course will know - intuitively - about ecosystems, because a town centre can be seen in these terms. The health (or otherwise) of the high street is really a function of how many people are using their town centres, and whether that number is increasing or (as seems the case) slowly declining. But unlike vicariously spectating on big corporations duking it out over platforms and devices, the health of our town centres is something we should all be more concerned with. It has a big impact on very real aspects of our communities: crime rates, property prices, social cohesion and our community wealth. Wealth created amongst small shops on the high street tends to stay in the community. Wealth created through the supermarkets is repatriated to distant shareholders - or shovelled into tax havens.

The book trade can also be seen in terms of an ecosystem of course: before Christmas, Mostly Books did an event with Atlantic Books CEO Toby Mundy, and he made the point that independent booksellers tend to deliver more value into the book chain, avoiding discounting in favour of careful choice and recommendation.
This is the argument that independents 'nourish the supply chain', delivering more value which allows the production of better books (something I've also blogged about before).

In doing a lot of research into this over the past few weeks, I'm coming to the opinion that whoever will win the format war with eBooks is going to have to develop an effective ecosystem, both on and off-line. I've been tracking some case studies of independents who have become early adopters in supporting and delivering eBooks through their shops (see this article featuring Oblong Books in the US, and the recent UK indie delegation to the US). Google eBooks looms large in these reports, and Gogle understands about being as inclusive as possible to ensure the dominance of a particular platform or technology.

At the moment, I have no opportunity to work with Amazon and its Kindle device - it's a closed shop. And Apple seems to be flexing its muscles in terms of how content is sold on its devices. Both these organisations are in danger of hacking of the very people who might work hard to ensure widespread adoption. At the moment, I may wait and see what Google do in the UK...