rebelutionary / 2.0

A rant on Web 2.0 and "inspired" competition / 2006 Sep 28

Despite not being a Web 2.0 firm (well, actually - I think the term is so vague now it's hard to tell who, if anyone, is a Web 2.0 firm!), we made yet another list - this time of Australian Web 2.0ish firms. We did make the software category which is good but more and more I must say I really dislike the term "Web 2.0".

Originally it meant you had large fonts, gradients, fading yellow boxes and rounded corners but now it seems that every firm on the web is adopting it - whether they've been around for 5 years or not.

Randal Leeb-du Toit (who is currently the Director of Biz Dev for NICTA) and I had coffee last week, chatted about Atlassian and he wrote up his thoughts (albeit briefly and not entirely correctly) on his blog as a startup spotlight.

Apparently from the comments I "assured" him SocialText wasn't a competitor - that's probably going to piss Ross off ;) but I think what I actually said was we don't see them very often in "wiki bakeoffs" (when companies are choosing an enterprise wiki and evaluating multiple options). That's not really the same thing.

Speaking of ST, it's good to see that Chris Langreiter noticing publically that SocialText 2.0 has "lifted" more than a few, 2 year old, Confluence 1.0 features and is passing them off as "innovations".

It's a very strange, somewhat flattering, somewhat enraging feeling to see a competitor make such claims. The instant reaction is to jump around, yell, scream and tell anyone who will listen about the righteous injustice of it all. In reality, I think that is probably just a giant waste of energy. One must remember that almost all new things on the web are inspired from somewhere, it's just the degree of 'inspiration' that differs. Customers are smart people and I'm sure they'll choose the best product for themselves.

Refer to Joel's classic Fire and motion piece on how the Isreali army training taught him to think about staying ahead of the competition (yes, I do appreciate and enjoy the irony of linking to Joel here!) or if you're still not placated, remember that at the end of the day it's a free market (who doesn't cringe every time they hear that old chestnut?)

Thanks also to all the customers who sent angry emails to make sure I noticed ST2.0. "How dare they call that innovation? ****ing Americans!" was my favourite, if crass, emailed sentence. Very nice of you to email, but I had noticed. Strangely enough I watch developments in the wiki space quite clearly!

As always, it's nice to be recognised / written about / copied - thanks guys.

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