Market bundling strategies in the horizontal portal industry

Abstract

The Internet offers opportunities for incremental efficiency gains as well as complete industry redefinition, but the marketplace has been slow to realize opportunities because of problems with value appropriation. This paper focuses on horizontal portals, a business activity that has emerged thanks to the Internet. It shows how different approaches to strategic industry analysis fail to provide a comprehensive view of industries in the information value system. As different markets become intertwined, strategic market bundling appears to be a superior strategy, and overall value appropriation opportunities have to be analyzed from this broader perspective. Copyright © 2003 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved.