Simon’s Blog

I have a challenge for fans and owners of Web 2.0 businesses - prove you’re not hypocritical! This isn’t about revenue sharing. It’s about hypocrisy and open vs closed systems. We hear a lot about community and participation from Web 2.0 other consumer “software as a service” fans. We also hear a lot of anti-Microsoft talk from those same people too. How Microsoft is the king of closed file formats e.g. the Office file formats. They tell us all how Microsoft has had a lot of success by making it easy to “suck” data in to their computer systems, while making it really hard to get that data out. And of course, they don’t like it! Hold that last thought a minute or two.

Now think about the business models of a lot of Web 2.0 companies. The idea is often to create a community of users that use your service. And then, also often, to have that data be shared with the community. So, why do investors like this kind of model? Because the content is generated for free (or cheaply) by the community (who also consume the service); and it makes the business “sticky”. This is what investors call an “unfair advantage”.

Now speaking personally, I have no problem with any of this - it’s not as if people are forced to use any of these software services. And I think it can be a smart business model, just as Microsoft has had a smart business model (yes, I know about the anti-competitive stuff – but even taking that into account, they still built an incredibly impressive and profitable business). What I dislike is the hypocrisy I see around the Net on the topic of Web 2.0 – that is, lots of anti-Microsoft bleating, pro Open Standards evangelism. You see the problem is that, in many ways, Web 2.0 businesses are pulling exactly the same stunt that Microsoft has used to such good advantage over the years. Web 2.0 isn’t even close to being open. With the way things are set-up now, the more people join a community and contribute data, the stickier the businesses set up around that community become. It’s easy and cheap to get all the data in; but very difficult to get the data out. Think about it. Say you’re on MySpace, and you’ve spent time writing your blog, building up a list of “friends”, putting up a bunch of photos that you’ve attracted your “friends” to comment on. It’s virtually impossible to take all that stuff with you if you want to leave to join another social networking web-site.

So - here’s the challenge - if you’re a fan of Web 2.0/”software as a service” or run such a business yourself; and you complain about closed systems and proprietary formats, do the decent thing - don’t be hypocritical. Don’t use, publicise or create services that make it difficult for people to switch to a competitor by making it hard for people to take all their content with them when they leave. Do use services that use open APIs and/or open standards to make it super-simple for people to take their business to a competitor.