Me Too Innovation Is Real News. Is It?
August 14, 2017
I saw links to a Wall Street Journal write up titled “In Tech, Imitation Is the New Innovation.” To view the document, you will have to [a] buy a dead tree version of the paper, [b] borrow one from a friendly neighbor or a low rise office building with newspapers scattered inside the entrance because who arrives when one can be on vacation, or [c] pay for an online subscription to one of the outfits wanting the US government to bail the newspaper companies out. (Is this an imitation of the Chrysler and GM bailouts? May be, may be.) You can find the story on page A-1 with a jump to page A-8 in the August 10, 2017 edition.
The main point of the write up is that the titans of Silicon Valley have run out of ideas. In order to get new ideas, the companies copy other companies. If the task of copying is tough, the big company may buy the outfit with the idea. Think how well that has worked out for Dodge Ball.
The focus of the write up is the general inability of the titans to come up with new ideas that capture eyeballs. Facebook is the focus, but I think of Google as one of the premier companies using piggyback innovation.
An interesting example of quasi innovation is the Google patent application 2017/0228436 A1, which is a continuation of a patent series reaching back seven years to 2019. The seven year old patent itself nods its head to a Korean patent dating from 2002. The August 2017 patent application reaches back 15 years.
The idea of “standing on the shoulders of giants” romanticizes the fact that coming up with something that captures users is difficult. Very difficult.
What strikes me as “Providing Results to Parameterless Search Queries” is that Google’s “invention” is similar to the “me too” approach to creating something new referenced in the Wall Street Journal write up. Facebook is doing what seems “natural.” Imitation is natural because the original “good idea” cooked up at Harvard needs oomph. Data enables refinement of ideas that may be decades old.
Innovation is less about innovation by copying or acquiring. Innovation is now a way to exploit comprehensive data.
Stephen E Arnold, August 14, 2017
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