Not that Van...WebVan!

ZDNet sez: 'Internet van' helped drive evolution of the Web

Parked feet from the entrance of the Computer History Museum here in the heart of Silicon Valley, the vintage van is being feted at a celebration marking the very first true Internet connection.

The first Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)-based transmission between three separate networks--Arpanet, packet radio, and satellite--was made possible by the van, which was built by the research and development agency SRI International. It was driven for the first time on November 22, 1977. The same van was the key to the first packet radio network--that is, the first mobile digital radio network--a precursor to Wi-Fi and the other wireless networks of today.

But thats not the van I think of when I think about evolution of the Web - I think about Webvan, which must be one of the icons of Web 1.0 silliness. As the Chicago Tribune's Strategos notes...

Webvan's rapid rise and fall from IPO to RIP has elicited a certain sameness in news stories covering the company's recent bankruptcy protection proceedings announcement. Indeed, readers of most U.S. newspapers might be excused for assuming that Webvan Group Inc.'s well-anticipated demise is proof that all dot-com news belongs on the obituary page rather than in the business section.

Yet the fact is that Webvan's fatal flaw was not written in its dot-com DNA, but rather traces to a more prosaic malady: a congenitally weak business model.

To be sure, we've all heard about the enormous infrastructure costs Webvan incurred, and certainly those costs did play a contributing role. Webvan invested in infrastructure the way the ill- fated Iridium venture launched satellites, burning through more than $800 million without pausing long enough to test the basic viability of its business model.

And that model should have been suspect from the start. The reason: In spite of its claim to virtuality, Webvan was a "brick" masquerading as a "click," not only building its brand from scratch but hellbent on building its own billion-dollar, 26-city network of warehouses to serve its (as yet non-existent) consumer clientele.

The lesson here - combined models validated by existing customers work best....Unlike Webvan, which had a brand to build, Tesco made its task much more manageable: Extending its established brand to a new channel.

There are quite a few Web 2.0 plays that could do well by learning some of the lessons of Web 1.0 failures...as Santayana said, those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.