[Asmodeus]

While the walking distance is not optimal, there is an upside. The ice cream vendors will be driven to differentiate their ice cream lines, and the beach dwellers will be able to comparison shop without walking halfway across the beach.

[sb]

Hm, while reading the article I noticed an interesting aside of this theory, similarly to yours: Assume it is correct, then your need to compete will make all the difference it takes: Have double the amount of helpers so as to reduce waiting times (in the political analogy one could double the supporters to increase "fishing" returns). Differentiating the ice cream lines is in the same league. What this effectively means is that given an existing ecosystem of companies, a new competitor needs to combine both: near spatial placement within the ecosystem w.r.t. to the competitors with the advantage of having superior products/services.

What I am asking myself how this affects the computer science industry, i.e., in our business spatial-nearness is not necessary and for our customers superior technology is usually judgemental; any ideas?

[raquo]

If you take web business for instance, all businesses a certain person knows about are near each other (in the address bar), so you have to actually differentiate your product/service to sell it.

[bsaunder]

If only they developed an on-line store and a delivery mechanism. It would be the optimal solution from the customer perspective (price, feature and distance). Thanks in part to the ubiqutious internet.

[stcredzero]

You might be making a joke, but you also might have something here. If you can get GPS coordinates localized down to 5 meters, then you can have a mobile app that will let you place orders in places like public parks and on the beach. The app would look up vendors in the same location who are currently "open", and present virtual storefronts for them. The app would send the name, the precise GPS coordinates and, at the option of the user, a photograph to aid in finding the customer.

On the vendor side of the app, you'd have a list of orders and a map of the customers. Done properly, this could be a big win for vendors, since ordering would be easier, increased volume would be likely, and they would be better able to plan production/delivery.

Basically, it's like Loopt but for hyper-local b2c. Instead of hooking up singles or friends, you're hooking up cart vendors and their customers.

[sfnhltb]

I remember watching a program about venture capitalists and the internet bubble and some experienced VC talking about how many millions he had blown trying to get a scheme somewhat along these lines up and running. Maybe the increased prevalanced and usability of mobiles might make it more feasible, but it a massively non-trivial undertaking - certainly trying to do it from on top. Some sort of organically growing website that vendors/customers use might work, but it is one of those chicken/egg problems - unless you have customers coming to the site it is a waste of time for the vendors to have to deal with the trickle of orders from it, and until a large number of vendors are present customers will get little use from it.

One way I could see working is a widespread existing business collection/franchise spreading out into more and more products over time - so companies/organisations as diverse as interflora or starbucks might start by offering products in their core competancy online, maybe start allowing other companies to join the scheme to cover gaps in their coverage, and eventually spread out to cover a wide range of goods so the website/app grows beyond the original founder.

[eru]

Start in a single concentrated location, like Central Park or so.

[bsaunder]

yes, that was entirely my point.