3 use the site (e.g., pay to create an account), T2T would be immediately undercut by larger, more established competitors who offer free enrollment like Ebay and Craigslist. It would be counterproductive to charge our users an upfront fee to join the platform –particularly if the goal is to exploit social media features to lure users to browse and share content to generate sales leads. To keep the platform free for users but also keep the platform afloat, T2T would need ad revenue as well. It would provide page space for third parties to display banner ads or other types of clickthrough advertising. T2T can find ad sales opportunities by promoting targeted ads based on the specific product searched or purchased. For example, if the user is buying used wooden furniture, it can offer ad opportunities to local furniture restorers; if the user is buying used clothing, it can offer targeted ad sales to the local dry cleaners; if a user is buying used computer parts, targeted ad space can be offered to local computer repair shops, etc. Industry Convergence Industry convergence is both the greatest threat and opportunity to T2T. “Industry convergence refers to the merger of media enterprises into powerful, synergistic combinations that can cross-market content on many different platforms and create new works that use multiple platforms.”(Kenneth C Laudon, 2018) p 670. As a startup, T2T would be operating in a space dominated by giants of the internet age that have been around for decades. Those companies have a head start on morphing their platforms to take advantage of modern intern paradigms; that is, Ebay for a time, was part payment processor by owning Paypal; social media sites, like Facebook, are incorporating ecommerce features and payment options like bitcoin. The days of a platforms performing a singular task are behind us. To survive, a platform like T2T must ultimately either outcompete and outgrow its competitors (i.e, beat Ebay) or converge with one of the current
