Marc's Voice

Taking advantage of open for proprietary purposes

I’ve started to realize more and more - that we’re gonna see various products, services and platforms built on open technologies that will then insert their own proprietary solutions, formats and protocols into the mix to achieve lock-in.

This seems to be the formula for success.

You provide some killer app functionality, suck in lifestreams and profile data, aggregate content and services and wrap it all in some warm and fuzzy UI.  Then you lock-in your users into YOUR solution and sit back and wait til your installed base grows - and then slap on some sort of ‘freemium’ monetization model, if you’re ever lucky enough to get that far.

This path is what’s acceptable to VCs (like Fred Wilson and Saul Klein) and I think we’ll see LOTS of these kind of plays in the near future.  But as we see open technologies like OpenID and oAuth grow - I can’t help but wonder what Glue, Twine, Twitter, OpenX, Bug Labs and a host of other startups are doing to give back to the community?

Will these folks show up at the upcoming IIW (Internet identity Workshop) and make a contribution or just listen?

Will these new breed of startups ever propose open standards that could ‘glue’ each other together?

Will these startups work with their competitors for the good of their end-users?

Will these startups allow their user’s profile data, social graphs and content to leave and never return?

Will these startups allow their services to be synchronzied and ‘glued’ into OTHER competitive glue services?

I can’t help but wonder if ‘claiming‘ that you’re open is just this year’s version of the free market place (which is code for huge multi-nationals moving jobs overseas and hiding profits in the Caymans.)

And what about being International in scope and focus?  Will these startups do anything more than just “localize” their products into Russian, Chinese or Arabic?  Will they become the new version of ‘carpetbaggers’ bringing their Silicon Valley-style hucksterism to a new generation of ‘plantation slaves?’

In this era when so many Reagen Republicans and Libertarians are voting for Obama, will jumping on the “open” bandwagon be this year’s equivalent of being “politically correct?”

Certainly Open is the new Black - and the VCs have figured that out.

Now they’re just trying to twist it and rip it off and figure out how to exploit and monetize people in a “Web 2.0″ kind of way.

And I’m sure Tim O’Reilly will give them plenty of air time - that’s for sure.

I just think that when you take advantage of being open and benefit from being open, you kind of HAVE TO contribute something back to the community.

Like Plaxo is.

And Google.

And Yahoo or Microsoft.

Sure they’re big enough to afford to do that - but it’s also a kharma thing.  None of these behemoths are expecting to make money off of being open. They ARE however forced to keep up with the Joneses and provide their userbases with compelling experiences to keep them coming back.

So they HAVE to go open!

But what about startups?  They’re in a precarious position where to build up their installed bases they need to APPEAR to be open, dangle their killer app functionality in front of the world and sit back and wait for their ‘roach motel’ strategy to engage.

There are plenty of smaller companies making contributions to the world of open.  So it’s not like you CAN’T contribute cause of lack of resources or focus.

Companies like Vidoop - which is sponsoring Chris Messina and the DiSO project. Or Jan Rain or ooTao or Meebo or everything that Kaliya Hamlin does.

I call upon incubators like BetaWorks and YCombinator and startups like Automattic, Seesmic or Glue to help us all develop open standards to extend the blogosphere, XMPP and the OpenID attribute exchange, to connect lifestreams together and to establish open servers for OUR DATA - so that web celebs like Robert Scoble don’t have to build up social graphs over and over again - on every service they go to.

Folks - when open becomes the norm - we’ll ALL benefit from it.  And the folks who helped get us there will get the credit, the monetization and the kharma.

But companies that rode on our coattails, sucked up the air around us and then sold their companies to the highest bidders - will have trouble crossing the river Hades - when judgement day arrives.

Y! OS struts it’s stuff

I’ve been catching up - since returning from Europe and one of the biggest things that happened while I was away was the launch of Y! OS.  There’s a great interview putting it all into perspective at theSocialWeb.tv with Cody Simms, the marketing manager of Y! OS at Yahoo.

One of the things that Chris Messina said which really resonates is that it’s time for vendors to show the benefits of being open.

We (as users) complain allot and make demands (as we should) but only until vendors (like Yahoo, Amazon, Google, etc.) can show that being open not only satisfies user’s demands, but it also can have bottom line ramifications, prop up a brand and give vendor’s the ablity to participate in our ‘open mesh’ of the future.

John McCrea also brings up that by utilizing open technologies developers can bring their products to market faster, standing on the shoulders of others by propagating their apps and services with user’s social graphs - in a timely manner.  

How coolio is it that a generation of social prodfucts can now socialize - faster!

This is key key stuff folks.  The open web goes mainstream!

Thank you Yahoo - for doing the right thing!

And I can’t wait to hear more about OpenSocial templates!