Goodbye, “Everything Store.” Hello, “Everything City.”

There are many ways to think about technology companies these days, but lately all the literal descriptions tend to fall short. Calling Google a “search giant” or Facebook a “social network” doesn’t capture how these companies think and act today—or will in the future. For example, in predicting Google’s moves, I prefer to think of the company as General Electric or Berkshire Hathaway (aka a conglomerate placing disparate and related bets); I believe the best way to understand Facebook and Google and the competition between them is to think, Cold War.

This week I spent some time thinking about Amazon, which announced another service far afield of online shopping. Amazon Local Register offers new card readers and a service that allows small businesses to accept credit card payments. The move, which many had anticipated, fits into a conception of Amazon that I have found useful lately. It’s not an e-commerce platform. Or a media or hardware company. It’s a city—an interconnected set of services that affect our daily lives with proximity network effects.