In this chapter, we have developed the Internet distribution matrix, and suggest that it can be used by existing firms and entrepreneurs to identify at least three things. First, how might the Internet and its multimedia platform, the Web, offer opportunities to perform the existing distribution functions of reassortment/sorting, routinization, and searching more efficiently and effectively. Cases of organizations using the medium to perform these activities, such as those that we have identified, can stimulate thinking. Second, the matrix can enable the identification of competitors poised to use the media to change distribution in the industry and the market. Finally, the matrix may enable managers to brainstorm how an industry can be vulnerable. Neither the firm nor its immediate competitors may be contemplating using the Web to achieve radical change. However, that does not mean that a small startup is not doing so. And the problem with such small startups is that they will not operate in a visible way, or at the same time. In many cases, they might not even take an industry by storm, but they might very well deprive a market of its most valuable customers, as they exploit technology to change the basic functions of distribution.
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