I wonder how much it would cost to buy Tribe.net ?
If I was a magic money fairy - as opposed to an impoverished programmer - I'd try to find a way to merge Tribe with Behance and DesignOutpost
Behance has a great look and a nice angle of being not only a LinkedIn style directory, but also a kind Getting Things Done consultant, for the "Creative Class".
But it gives little sense of a community or real artistic "scene".
OTOH, Tribe has that in spades. Tribe used to be a fantastic place to have good discussions ... as it has lost attention to the other YASNS, the debates have died out a bit, sadly. But there's no doubt that members feel they're part of something ... a bohemian, creative, tolerant, underground, burner, new age, spiritual, sexually experimental movement.
DesignOutpost is a market for hiring creative people (graphic and sound-designers, web developers etc.) to work in a radically open way. Yet, its profiles are far behind those of Behance or Tribe.
In the talk of consolidation of the YASNS (particularly the dance of M$ and Yahoo, Facebook and MySpace) the motive is simply the lumpen aggregation of eyeballs for advertisers.
But the real as-yet-unlocked value of YASNS is to enable groups to *do* things together. Markets from DesignOutpost to Etsy to Rentacoder are providing one way for people to work together. The interesting thing about my fantasy merger is not the aggregation of eyeballs but the real (am I really, gonna use this word? OMFG! guess I am, take cover) synergy of the activities or communities.
A real social network and creative community which was also a good portfolio manager AND market could create value in a way unimagined by the advertising model of YASNS.
May 25, 2008
May 20, 2008
May 19, 2008
Umair :
According to an interesting rumour making the rounds: Microsoft is to acquire Yahoo's search business as well as Facebook, and lock both down, to better take on Google. Microsoft is trying to shift from open to closed.
May 17, 2008
May 15, 2008
May 14, 2008
The whole tone of this smells very bad.
More about Sun selling JavaFX to broadcasters than to end-users.
Still a couple of things sound good.
JavaFX script? WTF?
Unlike many other Java scripting languages, JavaFX Script is statically typed and will have most of the same code structuring, reuse, and encapsulation features that make it possible to create and maintain very large programs in Java
A scripting language designed for client-side RIAs which has the static typing that you need for "large programs". If ever there was self-serving, self-deluding talk it's Third, enterprises want to reuse their existing Java skills and assets in moving to RIA.. Are enterprises going to write RIA client widgets?
Widgets will get written by small, clever independents. Or more likely, graphic designers who started with Photoshop and Dreamweaver and painfully taught themselves Flex the way they taught themselves PHP. They won't get written by the mass-armies of mediocre java-school programmers who live inside the enterprise.
Meanwhile Project Caroline is allegedly their answer to Google Application Engine.
May 13, 2008
May 11, 2008
Interesting discussion about the nature of Twitter and why it's not distributable, at least not as a bunch of RSS-type feeds.
May 10, 2008
Now everyone is at the Yasn-as-platform game.
MySpace
Facebook
Google (Friend Connect comming soon)
Microsoft have to buy / partner with MySpace or Facebook now or lose their place in the Yasn-as-platform game.
A smart, medium sized company who'd also like to get into this would be looking at Ning.
May 08, 2008
Hat-tip Exmosis : another example of the error of assuming that YASN members and their attention == old-media eyeballs.
Update - Dave Winer : is MySpace opening up?
May 04, 2008
Yahoo should be broken up. End of story.
There are great products inside Yahoo, eg. Flickr. Some big services which are world-beaters.
The problem is, anyone big enough to buy Yahoo outright (like Google or M$) already has their own version of a lot of these ... and would have to start killing off either their own or Yahoo's.
If Yahoo isn't big or coherent enough to survive on its own, then the next best thing is to blow itself up into a number of higher value independent units. Let each go out and thrive, die or get bought on its own merits.
...
Unless ... of course ...
what was Cringely saying again, about Apple wanting to be in the media distribution game?
May 03, 2008
May 02, 2008
May 01, 2008
FriendFeed, the hot new aggregator is more than 50% Twitter.
The Twitter eco-system seems unstoppable.
Update : more on Twitter as social router.
