What's the difference?
Both are business strategy terms that mean two completely different things. Let's take a look at some basic definitions:
1) White space: a potential market that your business can seize and operate alone in. It can be about product or service differentiation and it also doesn't have to be about innovation or value at all. It is a term to explain a differentiation analysis. Operating in one's white space can mean that the competition remains at bay, just like with a Blue Ocean strategy. That is one of the familiarities that can be made between the two terms.
Check out Seizing the White Space (2010), for more details. Many university presentations by Peter Thiel also underline the importance of finding your white space.
2) Blue ocean strategy: a popular framework for creating and capturing new markets by offering value innovation to clients. Establishing a value proposition that is different from, AND superior to the existing competition so that the competition is left behind and that your company is ahead. It is a term to to explain the elaboration of a value innovation strategy. One of the most concise argument of this strategy is that it is value innovation, not technology innovation, that launches commercially compelling new markets.
Check out Blue Ocean Strategy (2004), for more details.
Other terms to explore can include: "Greenfield territory", "White Ocean strategy", "Black Ocean strategy".
I like to think that a white space can be identified through the elaboration of a Blue Ocean Strategy, creating an added moat for the business. It is not always required or the case.
