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So I read this article a few minutes ago. I have been waiting for something like this to happen for a long time. There are two main patterns of thought for doing business on the Web - the Web 2.0 way and the "old way". The Web 2.0 way encourages innovation by allowing content and services from multiple provides to be "mashed up" into single points of entry that are tailored to the needs of users, often catering to very niche user profiles, but still supporting a broad audience. Web 2.0 is all about enhancing the user experience of the Web - taking the Web and instead of punishing people with solutions waiting for problems, actually creating a thriving community.
The "non- Web 2.0" way roughly translates to the NIH way of doing business in the corporate world. In case you haven't been hit with the NIH hammer before, it stands for Not Invented Here. The basic thought behind this model is that you don't want any portion of your potential profits going to an outside vendor for something that you think you can do in-house better.
Take a look at this choice quote from Peter Chernin:
“If you look at virtually any Web 2.0 application, whether its YouTube, whether it’s Flickr, whether it’s Photobucket or any of the next-generation Web applications, almost all of them are really driven off the back of MySpace.”
I can't even believe that I'm seeing this. Obviously the man who bought MySpace hasn't the faintest idea what Web 2.0 is all about. Most CEOs know when not to spout off their opinions, and this guy certainly doesn't. The facts are that a fairly large portion of the traffic that leads to YouTube comes from MySpace. What this guy obviously doesn't realize is that if MySpace ceased to exist tomorrow, all of the traffic that MySpace drives to YouTube now would go directly to YouTube. Sure, people would be upset about losing their precious MySpaces (MySpace addiction is an entirely different blog post...), but they would survive, adapt, and re-route their daily surfing habits directly to YouTube or to whatever other community portal popped up.
MySpace is a community portal, and its single, sole, solitary asset is its community. If that community gets tired of MySpace, they will drop it and not think twice. The people in charge of MySpace should have more respect for their community and should certainly not be so arrogant as to assume that the only thing keeping YouTube afloat is the traffic from MySpace.
And here's some more choice words from Chernin:
“Given that most of their traffic comes from us,” he said, “if we build adequate if not superior competitors, I think we ought to be able to match them if not exceed them.”
This is ridiculous. The reason people use YouTube isn't because of the technology involved on that site. YouTube's critical asset is its existing library of videos. They have so many videos on that site, its mind-blowing, like this one , my current favorite. I think the word chil-lax should be added to the Webster dictionary.
What I see here is an old-school attitude attempting to do some real harm to a forward-thinking Web 2.0 site. If they try to turn MySpace into a monolithic single-source content host and content provider, and start blocking out external references and walling themselves in...the portal nature of MySpace will dissappear, and I can guarantee that members will start dropping like flies. If you can't get to somewhere interesting outside MySpace from someone's MySpace page.. people are going to stop going to MySpace entirely and skip the middle-man. Right now, the appeal of MySpace is that its a really fun middle-man for those who use it. Take away its middle-man abilities and you lose a lot of appeal.
Anyway, my two cents. Its rare that you get to see so much arrogance and ignorance show up in quotes from a CEO so I felt it was blogworthy.
I think you are wrong. If all Gore invented the Web 1.0, then MySpace
invented Web 2.0 . Since they invented it, they get to decide and control
all applications built on top of it. Even your blog has been built on the
back of MySpace.
Spot on! Lovely article. MySpace really have no idea what's going on.
ALL sites like myspace eventually die, its the nature of that type of site
- people get bored, something better will come along - it has no business
model or value model to make money. :)
Thing is, you have communities such as facebook which is either web 1.5, or
web 2.5 :) -- wherein they encourage people to use their site to the
fullest to create new stuff, but it's ll within their infrastructure.
