Walled Gardens: A Blast from the Dark Ages
October 26, 2010
No self respecting war lord would have a garden and leave it open to the folks who did grunt work. The powerful family wanted a place to chill without the annoyances some people generate. Flash forward to 2010. The war lord at Apple wants to keep the orchard free of pests. Farewell Flash. Java is getting its walking papers soon too. Microsoft likes to keep its SharePoint kids clean and neat. Fees, training, and some sales leads do the job. Get too frisky in a Microsoft centric company, and you and your Linux box get a chance to find your future elsewhere. The Google jaws about open, but I don’t think the Google wants to let Facebook poach Orkut users. In fact, Google does not want a competitor in search or anywhere else for that matter. Great war lords think similar thoughts.
“Facebook Disconnect” may be a third party extension today, but my hunch is that open gates may be equipped with the spike gizmos that rental car companies use to keep me from sneaking out the “In” gate. With the Internet making consolidation an inevitable consequence of the utilization and commoditization of online services, architects and builders of walled gardens are likely to enjoy a business boom.
Stephen E Arnold, October 26, 2010
Freebie
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
