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Can anyone give me a one or two sentence definition of the term "Consumer Internet"? I feel like it is a phrase that is getting thrown around an awful lot, yet it seems extremely ambiguous. In different contexts it can seem to have different meanings...

Thanks

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"Consumer Internet" is a market - offering a product / game / service that appeals to the consumer, vs "SaaS / MicroISV" which is a delivery strategy (software as a service) or a business definition (independent software vendor with one developer).

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+1 great description. That was exactly what i was looking for – Eric Amzalag Feb 5 '10 at 22:00
Could a web app that is targetted at consumers be called a SaaS? They type that has paid plans. – user14718 Feb 21 '12 at 20:43
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@john - Sure - one can offer a product to consumers that is SaaS. One could posit that apple does - its called icloud (wait! that's Storage as a Service!). Today, it seems any label can be affixed to an offering and stick. ;) More important is what value it provides to the intended market vs. what acronym flag it attempts to fly. – jimg Mar 1 '12 at 19:39
@Jim im glad that you point that out actually regarding the value being more important, shows how easy it is to get caught up in details that might be less important, thanks for the explanation regarding my question. – user14718 Mar 1 '12 at 20:00
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I would say it is used to describe services targeted at consumers (particulars) as opposed to businesses. I don't really see what could be confusing you... could you come up with a concrete example of an ambiguous usage of "Consumer Internet" ?

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Im thinking in context. Like, Consumer Internet business vs. SaaS vs. MicroISV vs. whatever. Unless im just being an idiot and totally taking this out of context. Which is very likely... – Eric Amzalag Feb 5 '10 at 17:59

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