Forbes' Top 10 Disruptors: 4/10

Forbes magazine has a list of the top 10 disruptors of 2006. 

I think some of these are interesting developments but not necessarily sustainable businesses:

1. YouTube (despite recent subpoenas by Fox)
2. Private Equity
3. Super-sized Philanthropy
4. Nintendo Wii game console (generating strong earnings today)
5. Salesforce.com's new approach to corporate software
6. Exchange Traded Funds
7. Erik Lie, the Iowa professor who discovered the options scandal of 2006.
8. Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth
9. Gossip writer Perez Hilton
10. Bundled Telecom Services

Interestingly, Apple's new iPhone is not ranked as disruptive. More on that in an upcoming post...

My view would be that for organizations, the disruptors of note would be numbers 4, 5, 6 and 10, Nintendo Wii, the demise of office software, ETFs and bundled telecom services. I have written on some of  these issues, including in our own top-10 list of industries under attack (pdf), published on The Disruption Group's page of Financial Post columns on disruption. 

Many assume that big new technology is always disruptive and that major disruptions are usually technological. I don't agree and I am glad to see that bundled telecom service, which is an innovative way increase customer convenience, is seen as a disruptive force. It may not be as exciting as other technology breakthroughs, like Vonage's low-priced VoIP phone service, but cable-TV companies are gaining new phone subscribers at very high rates because of the convenience of a single supplier and a single bill. And typically without much pricing action.

I don't think crude gossip columnist Perez Hilton is disruptive, unless you live in the celebrity bubble.

I enjoy watching "informative" videos on YouTube (warning), but I am not yet convinced that the company will live up to its $1.6B price tag. First it needs to create a legitimate business model that is not piracy and then it needs to earn some revenue.

I agree that the rise of private equity (many CEOs of public companies feels this one) and mega-philanththropy are potentially disruptive forces, but then again so are hurricanes: Big, powerful, difficult to predict but not necessarily something for an organization to aspire to as much as something to be aware of.

**Other Sources**
Clayton Christensen, the Harvard professor and pioneer in disruption, offers a how-to article in the same issue of Forbes co-written with Scott Anthony of Innosight. There's a sideswipe to Vonage, considered by many as disruptive.

Vonage rated a 'C' on our Disruption Scorecard, which we performed last May at the time of the company's IPO. (Article pdf and Disruption ScoreCard available on our management tools page.)

Daniel Scocco's InnovationZen offers a longer summary of the top 10 list.

Mark Cuban questions YouTube's business: Corporate ads and cheap titillation, is what it's all about, he says. "Could it be that YouTube will fade? The victim of fake shots up Britney's skirt and "My Response to..." videos ?" He backs up his opinion with viewer statistics.

Comments

[Daniel Scocco]

Thanks for picking my link up Michael.

Interesting post, regarding the iPhone I guess it was not included because the list is about "2006 disrupters".

Apart from the fact that the Innosight blog (Christensen's) evaluated the iPhone not quite like a disruptive innovation (and more like a sustaining one).

Innosight's Disruptive Assessment of the iPhone by Jonathan Barrett:
http://www.innosight.com/blog/index.php?/archives/79-A-Disruptive-Assessment-of-the-iPhone.html

Do you agree?