[cletus]

I haven't heard this particular phrase before vut I'm familiar with the concept. I've seen more than one show on the Wild West, various gold rushes and so forth. This concept comes up again and again.

One show coined this as "mining the miners", which I like.

There is a danger here though. If your business is selling pickaxes then it lives and dies by the mining industry. But I guess that applies to a lot of business types.

Another danger for B2B type businesses like Akamai is with no brand identity and loyalty you are in danger of being swapped and/or commoditized.

[jorkos]

To your point, i think the analogy holds when thinking about specific verticals. In fitness for example, sell bowflex or PBX90 where the gold is great fitness.

The analogy breaks down however when you see that in the B2C internet space, the issue is that you have to create the gold through your service; it's not known what everyone wants, you have to create it.....and thus the opportunity.