Amazon Heads for the Web-Free Internet

Imagine Bezos' reaction to his podium-mate's booming proclamation, "It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time."

Perhaps the Amazon CEO would offer a polite retort along the lines of, "I don't think so, sir."

With the recent restructuring of Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), Bezos looks to be positioning his company to join a race that has barely begun -- Internet commerce that goes beyond the World Wide Web.

Time Magazine's 1999 Person of the Year is either divinely dialed in to his company's destiny or absurdly lucky.

New Frontier

Analysts are forecasting the emergence of a new platform for Internet commerce, based on two innovations.

First, there will be executable software code that resides on users' PCs and mobile devices and lets one machine or individual to talk to any other one on the Internet. Second, there will be tiny integrated circuits embedded within physical objects that will extend the Internet into the material world.

This new "X Internet," as Forrester Research calls it, will begin to emerge around 2004 and is expected to eclipse the Web as the primary e-commerce medium.

At a recent trade show, Forrester founder George Colony predicted that Amazon might not be a key player in the X Internet, given its Web-centric offering.

My advice to Colony: take a close look at the details of Amazon's restructuring.

Rallying Resources

Amazon's application software development and third-party services implementation now reside together in one division.

One of the key drivers of Amazon's realignment, as stated in the restructuring announcement, is "to put the proper resources behind our third-party services business."

Foresight or dumb luck? Time will tell, but it's clear that Amazon's first stabs at third-party services condition users to a new kind of online experience, one that hints at how analysts have described the X Internet experience.

Honorable Intentions

Look at Amazon's Honor System service. It allows third-party sellers to use Amazon as a payments clearinghouse, complete with patented 1-Click ordering. Amazon customers can use their Amazon accounts to pay other online merchants.

Right now, the Honor System can only accommodate voluntary donations for Web site usage and access to content, not physical product purchases, but even Amazon has to start somewhere.

What's telling -- and perhaps prophetic -- is that this blurring of lines among online sellers is exactly what analysts say will typify X Internet commerce.

In Amazon We Trust?

Eventually, online shoppers will share profile and purchasing information with multiple merchants and peers, in order to expedite a series of related transactions, industry pundits say.

So booking business travel on tomorrow's Internet might automatically check for colleagues' meeting availability and present regional travel guides for purchase online or at physical stores en route, suggests one analyst.

But where and how will user data be stored securely? Analysts admit this is a looming uncertainty.

Why not with Amazon?

From where I'm standing, training 29 million customers to rely on your company to pay multiple merchants looks like a huge bid for consumers' trust. Not to mention an attempt to evolve online buying behavior.

Half Helper

Adding texture and legitimacy to this multi-merchant landscape are other early entrants contending alongside Amazon for a share of public trust.

EBay's (Nasdaq: EBAY) Half.com offers a downloadable application called Price Patrol, which alerts shoppers perusing other e-tail sites to cheaper items available at Half.com.

There's no payment component, but a client-based software application that intelligently processes information from multiple merchants deserves mention in any discussion of X Internet precursors.

Interestingly, Forrester's Colony doesn't like EBay's chances for X Internet stardom either.

Two words, Mr. Colony: Price Patrol.

Go Gators

And then there's Gator.com. The three-year-old company offers a downloadable application that compares cross-merchant prices, stores login IDs and passwords, and targets promotions per user.

All sensitive personal information is stored and encrypted on 27 million Gator users' PCs.

Again, no central payment functionality, but another multi-merchant client-housed interface forming user habits and gaining trust. Smells like X.

Blue-Ribbon Bezos

In the early going, Amazon will likely benefit from competitors like these who collectively acclimatize users to dynamic multi-merchant shopping paradigms.

But if the short history of Web-based e-commerce offers us any lessons, it's that clear X Internet winners will emerge.

With an early-mover's edge and a brand new department devoted to application software and third-party services, Bezos is destined to emerge as a winner. Again.

What do you think? Let's talk about it.