Which entrepreneur was an innovator of e commerce

His definition of the new mass communications medium as 'participative' [interactive, many-to-many] was fundamentally different from the traditional definitions of mass communication and mass media and a precursor to the social networking on the Internet 25 years later" Wikipedia article on online shopping, accessed In March reminiscences from Aldrich, and an account of his difficulties in reconstructing the early history of online shopping, entitled "Finding Mrs.

Snowball," were available from The Michael Aldrich Archive at this link. That's what Amazon did with cloud computing, taking a computer infrastructure the business developed internally for its massive electronic commerce operation and offering other firms an opportunity to run their own services over the same infrastructure. Amazon's current customers include the Nasdaq stock market and the New York Times , and it is the envy of software giant Microsoft, which is belatedly trying to break into the business.

The less common approach, says Bezos, is to start the innovation process with your customers and then work backward. That method meant returning to the needs of the company's original customers: book buyers. Of course, it is a tall order to improve on books, which are essentially unchanged after years, even as the industry continues to evolve. But if the device was going to sell, it also had to do things the book couldn't do. We made it possible to buy a book and read it 60 seconds later.

Bezos doesn't think so. He points out that digital cameras remain important in spite of the fact the many cell phones can now take pictures. Similarly, he says, "When you want a long reading session, one hour, two hours, you want a device that's so appropriate for that kind of focused activity that you set aside your cell phone and pick up your Kindle. So what's next from this tireless innovator? Bezos has invested his own money and time in Blue Origin, a Kent-based company that is developing "a rocket-propelled vehicle designed to routinely fly multiple astronauts into suborbital space.

Bezos also hints at big new plans for Amazon. But he won't offer any offer any details about his future plans. As a respected pioneer in ophthalmology, Dr. Ryo Kubota says he used to feel frustration over the lack of treatment options for a common ailment called "dry age-related macular degeneration," or dry AMD. After conducting research on the condition during the past four years, his company, Acucela, may be on the verge of a breakthrough that could save the eyesight of 26 million dry-AMD sufferers worldwide.

Kubota's eureka moment came seven years ago with the discovery that the process of sight itself-the chemical conversion of photons into electrical impulses inside the retina-produces toxins that, in excess, can lead to potentially blinding conditions such as dry AMD, Stargardt disease and diabetic retinopathy.

Working with a team of researchers, Acucela has developed a molecule, called ACU, which can slow down this "visual cycle" and, thus, reduce the amount of toxins produced. Since early , the treatment, which Kubota describes as "molecular sunglasses," has undergone clinical trials and shown great promise with very few harmful side effects. Gaylon Campbell, a now-retired Washington State University agronomy professor, started the company Decagon Devices so that his nine children would be able to work their way through college.

His oldest child, daughter Tamsin Jolley, was with the company in the beginning and now leads a growing concern that does much more than provide income to her and her siblings. Located in Pullman, Decagon invents, designs, manufactures and sells precision instruments and sensors used in food quality testing and environmental monitoring and research. The Decagon device went into the Martian soil to search for water.

Back on Earth, one of the company's more popular products does something relatively similar; Decagon's soil moisture sensors are used in vineyards throughout Washington. It's tough to be a serial entrepreneur during a recession, but Bellevue's prolific tech genius Sunny Gupta hasn't missed a beat. In , he founded Vigor Technology, which was later purchased by Rational Software.

The not-so-secret to Gupta's success is his focus on technology that can help businesses reduce IT costs. The Apptio software, he says, can trim expenses by 5 percent in the first six months and 15 percent over two to three years by giving CIOs a better understanding of the cost and utilization of their computer operations. Although Gupta always seems to be moving on to his next big project, he says he's staying put.

President, chairman, Nelson Irrigation Corp. Drive through Washington farmland and you're bound to find technology developed by Bart Nelson sprinkled-or more accurately, sprinkling-around the fields. Nelson is the president of Nelson Irrigation Corp. Working hard to stay ahead of its competitors, the company employs people in Walla Walla and keeps patent attorneys busy with its innovations and advanced technology.

In , Nelson Irrigation introduced the MP Rotator, a precise turf micro sprinkler that's spun off from a line of original rotators, then sold that invention to irrigation innovator Hunter Industries Inc. The company also is on the forefront in manufacturing processes and advanced custom machinery, and it has developed uses for its products beyond agriculture. Its products are used in wastewater systems, fire prevention and mining dust suppression, among others. In the roller-coaster story of renewable fuels, Kirt Montague is one of the rare survivors.

In , with Wall Street falling for any company that produced alternative fuels, Montague started Prometheus Energy, a company that converts landfill gas to clean-burning liquefied natural gas LNG. Two years later, with oil prices plunging and the global recession deepening, the firm was delisted and nearly broke. Undaunted, Montague reorganized the company, selling most of the assets to a private equity firm. With Shell's deep pockets, the revamped Prometheus plans to expand its LNG plants in California and Utah, as well as to build a new facility in Poland to enter the promising European market.

Designing and properly placing online display advertisements can take a couple of weeks. This approach is usually too costly for small businesses.

Earlier this summer, AdReady and Yahoo! My Display Ads-for small and medium-size businesses to reach target audiences on Yahoo and its partner sites, with AdReady providing the back end. Finn was previously co-founder of a web-based advertising agency, ia Interactive Inc.

Co-founders, Signature Genomic Laboratories , Spokane. The mapping of the human genome in has resulted in fewer medical breakthroughs than experts first predicted. Among the great successes is the development by Lisa Shaffer and Bassem Bejjani of their SignatureChip, a microarray-based method to test for chromosomal abnormalities in children with mental retardation and birth defects.

That same year, Berners-Lee created the first web server and wrote the first web browser. Shortly thereafter, he went on to debut the web on August 6, as a publicly-available service on the Internet.

In , the National Science Foundation lifted its restrictions on commercial use of the NET, causing online shopping to grow exponentially. In September , the NSF began charging a fee for registering domain names. The number of domain names quickly grew to two million by From the beginning, there were many concerns over the safety of online shopping. However, the development of a security protocol, Secure Socket Layers SSL —an encryption certificate created by Netscape in , provided a safe means to transmit data over the internet.

Web browsers were able to identify whether a site had an authenticated SSL and, based on that, determine whether or not a site could be trusted. Now, SSL encryption protocol is a vital part of web security, and version 3. In the mids, there were major advancements in the commercial use of the Internet. One of the first ecommerce sites was Amazon, which started in as an online bookstore but grew to become the largest online retailer in the world. Traditional brick-and-mortar bookstores were limited to about , titles.

Amazon, being an online only store without physical limitations, was able to offer exponentially more products to the shopper. The retail giant was one of the first online retailers to add user reviews and a rating scale for their products. Product reviews are now considered one of the most effective tactics for driving sales and building customer trust. The late s also saw new ecommerce platform options for merchants. In , Amazon launched Amazon Prime, a membership offering free two-day shipping within the contiguous United States on all eligible purchases for a flat annual fee.

The membership quickly became popular, putting pressure on other merchants to offer fast and inexpensive shipping options. It's one thing to have products your customers want. It's quite another to allow for further customization by the users, but this is exactly what's already happening on marketplaces like Etsy. Social collaboration isn't just about having a site where shoppers can drop their templates into existing designs.

Prospective customers can actually alter the designs of existing products and come up with beautiful, professional-looking one-of-a-kind wares. The implementation of sophisticated tools for collaboration and social interaction allows for customers to feel that they are a part of the creation process, which means that they can get a product that they really want, not just one that they want.

Expect to see more social co-creation in , especially in the apparel and accessory e-commerce sector. This is an exciting time to be in ecommerce, as businesses continue to innovate and get an edge on the competition. Don't forget: Innovation isn't all about the capital you have to invest in new initiatives. Many times, spending can actually get in the way of innovating, because creativity is what makes all the difference. New business processes don't necessarily require money, but they do require outside-the-box thinking.

You have to be able to see possibilities where others might see none. Get ready to generate new ideas, because we will be seeing fascinating and unusual changes in the ecommerce realm in Arturo Lee.

Ytzia Belausteguigoitia. Melanie Nuce. Entrepreneur Store. Daniel Laboe. Skip to content Profile Avatar. Subscribe to Entrepreneur. Magazine Subscriptions.