Podcast Commodify not Commoditise

Today I got an instant message from Shane at theresistancearmy.com. He asked me about the word commoditise. To my surprise commoditise isn't a real word. Although Google lists almost 20,000 pages with the word, I couldn't find one dictionary that included it.

I always though the word was legit and that it meant to turn into a commodity. No such luck. The verb that means to turn into a commodity is commodify. I had never heard this word before.

So Shane and I had a brief discussion about what counts as a real word. In the end we concluded that commoditize will make it into the dictionary if enough people use it.

Back to commodify and commodities. A commodity is a undifferentiated product. Like crude oil, pork bellies or gold. It doesn't matter who you buy your gold from it is still gold. Now no one want's the products they sell to become commodified. Commodities are much harder to sell at a premium price and therefore, as a seller, you must be much more efficient and that is hard.