Concept
Doc Searls coined the term in an article for Linux Journal. He wrote:
"The Intention Economy grows around buyers, not sellers. It leverages the simple fact that buyers are the first source of money, and that they come ready-made. You don't need advertising to make them."
Despite the advancement internet businesses are still seller oriented. Even successful businesses like Google still have the point of view of the sellers, with their revenue coming nearly all from advertising. Searls describes the current condition as a series of silos. The only option a buyer has is merely moving from silo to silo. Nothing has fundamentally changed.
Some sites have similar characteristics of an intention economy. For example flight booking services Priceline.com, which let users name their price for an airline ticket still functions like a "silo." In an intention economy a site like Priceline might serve as an intermediary with the airline coordinating new flight dates and times that correspond around the buyers intentions.
Companies need to be able to respond to a customers precise needs. "Mass customization, in a lot of areas it is no longer inherently necessary that I get the exact same thing as a million other people. A computer manufacturer can be geared for assembling a computer just for me, to my specifications. A travel agency can construct a travel plan particularly for me."
Read more about this topic: Intention Economy
Famous quotes containing the word concept:
“I was thinking what an interesting concept it is to eliminate the writer from the artistic process. If we can just get rid of these actors and directors, maybe we got something here.”
—Michael Tolkin, U.S. screenwriter, and Robert Altman. Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins)
“The concept of a mental state is primarily the concept of a state of the person apt for bringing about a certain sort of behaviour.”
—David Malet Armstrong (b. 1926)
“It is impossible to dissociate language from science or science from language, because every natural science always involves three things: the sequence of phenomena on which the science is based; the abstract concepts which call these phenomena to mind; and the words in which the concepts are expressed. To call forth a concept, a word is needed; to portray a phenomenon, a concept is needed. All three mirror one and the same reality.”
—Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794)