My favorite piece of technology: the wheel.
What I mean is, “technology” does not have to be a computer or made of carbon fiber or have blinking lights and a manual in Korean. “Technology” is the application of a tool to solve a problem. Nothing more.
And just because a business problem has a technology component does not mean that it is a technology problem.
For example, you might decide to sell T-shirts online. The fact that you’re selling them through a virtual storefront does not shelter you from the same challenges you would face were you selling them in a kiosk in the mall: you need to get goods in front of customers and convince them to pay you. And you can use Quickbooks, a spreadsheet or a “Cat of the Month” calendar, but you still need to keep track of paying your suppliers and getting money from your buyers.
Many information technology ventures use what’s called a “two-sided platform” as their business model. They are the middlemen: on one side, there are providers who want to give information or products to an audience. On the other are consumers who wish to get those products or information.
Depending on who has the money and who is willing to pay, one side of the platform usually subsidizes the other. For example, a website takes money from advertisers and allows consumers to see content for free; the advertisers essentially cover the cost of the bandwidth used by the consumers because they get access to those users in exchange. Or, a paid-access website charges users to access research articles, which covers the cost of the articles. Users want the content so much they they are willing to pay more than it costs to obtain the content in the first place.
If it sounds an awful lot like TV, or magazines, or going to a concert, that’s because it is. Information technology is just old technology with a shiny name and a new face.