Aggregation is part of the "Me, too!" Syndrome.

What we just might find, as the Shake-out means less and building a good business model means more, is that "branding" has been misdefined and that having an independent, unique voice that builds loyalty for your enterprise (an Old School rule) still matters..

Let's take the case of Boo.com, now wholly owned by once-obscure FashionMall.com because all their hip trendiness sent them the way of too many dot.coms last year: away.

So now when you visit this fashion-oriented e-commerce site much of the glitz of "cutting edge" Web programming is gone. Instead, it loads fast and you can find what you want and buy stuff. (Ohmigod! What a concept for an e-commerce site.) I think Boo has a chance this time around.

Meanwhile, because of the fear and trembling out here on the frontier of this maturing new medium, lots of independents are losing their sense of self in the rush to aggregate. The logic seems to go that if you are part of some giant and (supposedly) attractive collection of Web sites (are you thinking AOL, too?) then you can survive and possibly thrive due to the association.

What's wrong with this picture? Well, let me put the answer in the form of a question:

When's the last time you went into Lindy's T-Shirt Emporium simply because they happened to be in the same mall as Macy's?

Rod Amis

That's why I have frequently recommended IT professionals involved in e-commerce and the Web to spend time at (and subscribe to the newsletters of) CreativeGood.com and UseIt.com. Mark Hurst, who I consider a friend, is a great evangelist for successful e-commerce strategy and everyone acknowledges the merits of Jakob Nielsen's campaign.

But let's look beyond the surface of those ten million or so Web sites out there, beyond of the hype surrounding the Priceline.com's, iWin.com's and Oxygen.com's of the world. If you are not dealing with rubes, but rather serious business partners and do-or-die fulfilment issues, your priorities are functionality and reliably. Why? Because that's how you establish a good reputation (often called "good will" in business circles) and develop loyalty.

Good will is what branding is all about. Not a cute logo or a cute mascot like now-defunct Pets.com.

IF we have learned anything from the legal con game that was the dot.com boom, in this view, it is that Old School business principals still matter. OR, to put it another way, you can only fool some of the people some of the time; in the end integrity and attention to detail do matter.

So how, I have to ask, does aggregating make you more attractive, sell product, or improve your viability? Guess what? It doesn't.

That's not to say that some of the vacuous and inept did not survive the shake-out, or that virtue is more than its own reward. It is to say that a solid perspective on the customer/user experience when dealing with you is what building a business is all about. That will never change. Where craftsmanship once ruled, it's now a given that the craft to be about is respect for your clientele.

Aggregation won't do that for you. Your solid experience and concern will.

And there are levels of clients. If you are the company IT department, then other departments in the enterprise are your clients. If you're in product management or development, then vendors and developers are your clients. If you are in Sales, it would seem to me, then knowing who your clients are, what their needs are and how to best meet those needs is a no-brainer.

Still, I look back at the original Boo.com, the one that no longer exists, and have to ask myself why those Brits didn't figure out that the purpose of their e-commerce site was to sell something to their visitors, not wow them with the techno-computer glitz.

And that's why I warn you to think twice about aggregation.