The concept of richness and reach, as illustrated by Evans and Wurster in “Blown to Bits” (1999), has been an important contribution to our understanding of Internet business strategy.

This is the argument in a nutshell:

The information economy and the economy of physical things differ fundamentally from each other. When a tangible good is sold, the seller no longer owns it. When an idea, piece of software, or research paper is sold, the seller still owns it and could possibly sell it once again.

The information can be replicated at no notable cost and can be distributed over the Internet at a very low cost. In addition to information, tangible assets are location-based and often wear out.

In the traditional economy of things, products are subject to a universal law: the balance between richness and scope. Because information is embedded in products in a physical mode of delivery, companies can choose to have a very “rich” product or to have a very “reach”—that is, have a broad audience in terms of geographic reach or breadth. of the client’s objective. groups The meaning of “wealth” may vary depending on the context; for example, a scientific research publication or a highly sophisticated stereo are rich in information. The scientific research article has a very small audience in a certain location, while the sophisticated stereo will be very specific and expensive. Therefore, its “reach” is low.

Along comes the Internet. The more the pool of tangible products and information becomes dissolvable, the more obsolete the balance between richness and reach becomes. Therefore, a good corporate Internet strategy will add richness and scope to the existing business strategy at the same time.

For digital or fully digitizable products, there is no trade-off between richness and reach. We can add as much richness as we want and still have a global reach. A very “rich” business can be described as a very specific one. In fact, for the business of a new website on the Internet it is necessary to be very “rich”, that is, to be very “niche”.

The more specific the theme or theme of a website, the more targeted the visitors coming to the website from search engines will be. On the one hand, it will be easier to be at the top of the search engines with very “rich” niche content, on the other hand, whatever the revenue model of the website, the conversion rate will be higher as the traffic is higher. targeted Because “reach” is on the Internet and is only subject to language limitation, we have to truly excel in “wealth” in our online businesses.