The Intention Economy

14

Vertical and Horizontal

So then Apple is the ultimate unGoogle. Right? Not so fast.

—Jeff Jarvis¹

THE ARGUMENT

Markets grow in at least two dimensions. It doesn’t make sense to argue that one axis is better than another when both together are doing the job.

The smartphone business was invented by Nokia and RIM around the turn of the millennium and then royally disrupted by Apple and Google a few years later. Today, Apple and Google define the smartphone business, together, though not always in direct competition. It is important to understand how this works, because the two companies’ directions are orthogonal: ninety degrees off from each other. And because they do that, the market for both—and for everybody else as well—is huge.