a blog about information
Smart companies try to commoditise their products’ complements. So said Joel Spolsky in an article on the economics of open source four years ago; if you haven’t read it, you can find the article here; it can also be found in that excellent collection of articles published as Joel on Software. I’ve been musing on … Continue reading “Four Pillars: Thinking about complements and Because Of Rather than With”
Yesterday my predecessor, Al-Noor Ramji, was quoted as saying that Google was BT’s “biggest threat”. You can find the story here. The reaction from many commentators was similar to that experienced by my colleague, Sean Park, when he went public with AmazonBay; they ranged from “you cannot be serious” through to “there’s some truth in … Continue reading “Four Pillars: Because Of rather than With: A very provisional post”
I’ve been fascinated by the Because Effect, ever since Doc Searls first discussed it with me, set against the backdrop of Doc’s Making a New World and Stewart Brand’s The Long Now. What is this Because Effect? Doc describes it better than I can, but if it helps you any, I use the following definition: … Continue reading “Prince-ly returns from the Because Effect”
I have often wondered why we spend so much time wrestling with the issues related to Marketing in the 21st Century, with reframing IPR and DRM, and with “net neutrality“. Why we land up with starkly polarised views and start calling each other names. Blefuscu and Lilliput all over again. And recently, I’ve begun to … Continue reading “The Because Effect and the future of Marketing and IPR and maybe even the Net”
While many of us may understand the distinction between Because Of and With companies, there are still many unanswered questions as to the right business models to use for Because Of companies. As with most of opensource (and some will say it should be all of opensource, and I tend to concur), Because Of companies … Continue reading “Musing on The “With” To “Because Of” transition”