It is trending towards personalisation. In America at least, the days of everyone drinking Budweiser and Starbucks are fading. People are moving towards micro-breweries for their beer, and local baristas for their caffeine.

Why? It’s probably a case of affordability of the means of production. It used to be economically unfeasible for micro-brewers and local coffee shops to compete with the national brands/chains, but with the reduction of start-up capital costs, more aficionados can get into the game.

It’s the same for the Web. Except in this case the big guys are leading the personalisation charge (Google search results on the same item will always be different for you and I).

We want the world to be shaped around our personal values, desires and convenience. The companies that achieve this are winning.

PS: I have recently heard of big breweries marketing their products under contrived micro-beer labels, much to the dismay of true micro-brewers. There’s nothing wrong with that, and provides further evidence that the likes of SAB are not to be underestimated! In the end it doesn’t matter whether it’s a big company or a lonely entrepreneur, it only matters that the product is being personalized to the consumer.