"Old business models are being turned upside down" is an interesting headline, but I don't think that is the reality.

Frankly, I think the idea of N=1 is a bit recycled. I'm old enough to remember the "market niche of 1" in the early '90s, when Mosaic first came out and the WWW started to commercialize.

Remember the Levis initiative to custom design jeans per person? I still have some late-'90s-era presentations on the concept of marketing to a size of 1.

However, it may indeed be true that we are getting closer to this, and companies need to be aware of the impact and opportunities.

Look at music. Even with the rigorous hurdle-building hi-jinks of the RIAA, music distribution is finally changing in a fairly fundamental way to a direct market/micro-segmentation model.

Social computing impact? Most companies think this means they should advertise on Facebook. Big deal.

Look what has happened to Sony. Great idea (combine content with the consumer hardware to deliver it), and internal politics results in the loss of what was THE example of product innovation (the Walkman).

It is the small incrementalization of a change that catches companies off-guard. It happens bit by bit, which makes it more dangerous.