What website gets the most weekly Web traffic? Most people automatically think of Google, since it's the No. 1 search engine. That answer used to be true, but today it's incorrect. The website that gets the most weekly Web traffic now is actually Facebook.
This brings up the question, "Can the big companies like Google be displaced?" And the answer is yes. But Google seems to be so big and powerful. How can Facebook get more traffic and offset it?
To answer that question, it's first important to remember that before Facebook there was MySpace. And before Google there was Yahoo!. In game-changing times like we're now experiencing, even gigantic companies that seem so big and powerful can be knocked off the mountain.
So are Google, Facebook, or even Apple completely secure in their dominance? No. No company is ever secure in its dominance. But that's actually good news because it means opportunity for those companies that see the disruptions occurring, understand them, and take advantage of them.
Remember, in game-changing times, no matter how big you are and no matter what competitive advantage you have, you're actually losing that advantage even though it doesn't seem obvious. You need to get new advantage, and you do that by being anticipatory versus reactionary.
What's the game changing to? Well, we had Web 1.0, which was search. Yahoo!, eBay, and Amazon were the early leaders here. Then it became Web 2.0, which is social media. Now, Web 3.0, which is the 3D, totally-immersed experience, and Web 4.0, which is ultra-intelligent electronic agents, are coming much faster than Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, because we have bandwidth, storage, and processing power advancing at an exponential rate.
So take a look at your company. Are you playing the new game? Or are you trying to win the old game? Are you looking at the future through a windshield? Or are you gazing through your rearview mirror?
It's time for everyone to wake up to the game-changing environment we're in and start being anticipatory to the coming changes rather than just react to them. Remember, if it can be done, it will be done. And if you don't do it, someone else will. The revolution we're in is powerful...and it's just beginning.