Probably the most interesting exchange on yesterday’s VC Panel at Google I/O was around how investors think about open versus closed systems. Dave McClure got the most memorable line of the day with “Open is for losers." Dave was obviously being provocative on purpose. My own thinking here was captured by comments from Chris Dixon and Brad Feld. Chris pointed out that open is the basis for more overall consumer surplus generation (i.e. more total net benefit to society), while closed is the b...

Probably the most interesting exchange on yesterday’s VC Panel at Google I/O was around how investors think about open versus closed systems. Dave McClure got the most memorable line of the day with “Open is for losers." Dave was obviously being provocative on purpose. My own thinking here was captured by comments from Chris Dixon and Brad Feld. Chris pointed out that open is the basis for more overall consumer surplus generation (i.e. more total net benefit to society), while closed is the b...

I believe that PDF and Flash will hang around for quite some time. They are too widespread to disappear quickly. But I am excited about the rise of HTML5 and the gradual replacement of these closed formats. For instance, Scribd’s move to HTML5 is one such step. The reason for my excitement is mostly because I don’t like how PDF and Flash often break basic ingredients of the web, such as linking and search (yes, I am aware that there are workarounds, but they are ugly). But there is one additi...

I believe that PDF and Flash will hang around for quite some time. They are too widespread to disappear quickly. But I am excited about the rise of HTML5 and the gradual replacement of these closed formats. For instance, Scribd’s move to HTML5 is one such step. The reason for my excitement is mostly because I don’t like how PDF and Flash often break basic ingredients of the web, such as linking and search (yes, I am aware that there are workarounds, but they are ugly). But there is one additi...

Even if Apple were to announce something entirely different on Jan 27 (just love the idea of the biggest headfake yet) it is clear that 2010 will be the year of slates, with Ballmer showing off HP’s upcoming Windows 7-based slate. So much has been written that I won’t even try to link to any of it. I have read a bunch but it’s impossible to have read it all and so the following points may well have been covered by a bunch of other people. Instead of speculation about what capabilities will be...

Even if Apple were to announce something entirely different on Jan 27 (just love the idea of the biggest headfake yet) it is clear that 2010 will be the year of slates, with Ballmer showing off HP’s upcoming Windows 7-based slate. So much has been written that I won’t even try to link to any of it. I have read a bunch but it’s impossible to have read it all and so the following points may well have been covered by a bunch of other people. Instead of speculation about what capabilities will be...

Following up to yesterday’s post, here is what I think folks should do about the threat of platform lock-in at the application/content layer. First, recognize that this is directly related to net neutrality. The ability of existing platforms and content owners to try to force the web back into walled gardens is limited by the ability of entrepreneurs to start open competitors and reach people directly and on a level playing field. Second, start voting with your mouse. At the moment we have en...

Following up to yesterday’s post, here is what I think folks should do about the threat of platform lock-in at the application/content layer. First, recognize that this is directly related to net neutrality. The ability of existing platforms and content owners to try to force the web back into walled gardens is limited by the ability of entrepreneurs to start open competitors and reach people directly and on a level playing field. Second, start voting with your mouse. At the moment we have en...

Yesterday, Tim O'Reilly published a provocatively titled post: “The War for the Web." In it he discusses the dangers to the web as an open platform from the attempts by the biggest players to own more and more of the user experience: We’re heading into a war for control of the web. And in the end, it’s more than that, it’s a war against the web as an interoperable platform. Instead, we’re facing the prospect of Facebook as the platform, Apple as the platform, Google as the platform, Amaz...

Yesterday, Tim O'Reilly published a provocatively titled post: “The War for the Web." In it he discusses the dangers to the web as an open platform from the attempts by the biggest players to own more and more of the user experience: We’re heading into a war for control of the web. And in the end, it’s more than that, it’s a war against the web as an interoperable platform. Instead, we’re facing the prospect of Facebook as the platform, Apple as the platform, Google as the platform, Amaz...

One of the great things about being focused on investing in web services is that the technical challenges faced by almost all of the companies in the Union Square Ventures portfolio tend to be the same. The solutions on the other hand vary widely. Some companies rack their own servers, others are at traditional hosting companies and some are entirely in the cloud. Some use Java, others PHP, many mix languages. You get the idea. And: there is no obvious correlation between the tools companies ...

One of the great things about being focused on investing in web services is that the technical challenges faced by almost all of the companies in the Union Square Ventures portfolio tend to be the same. The solutions on the other hand vary widely. Some companies rack their own servers, others are at traditional hosting companies and some are entirely in the cloud. Some use Java, others PHP, many mix languages. You get the idea. And: there is no obvious correlation between the tools companies ...

Google announced and released a number of innovations to their core search product this week, including search options and support for microformats/RDFa. What I think is most interesting about this is not so much the specifics of what they have done, but that they continue to innovate in core search. This contrasts with several other big names on the Internet, such as eBay, which for years have not really improved their core offering. One thing this suggests is that Google has in fact built a...

Google announced and released a number of innovations to their core search product this week, including search options and support for microformats/RDFa. What I think is most interesting about this is not so much the specifics of what they have done, but that they continue to innovate in core search. This contrasts with several other big names on the Internet, such as eBay, which for years have not really improved their core offering. One thing this suggests is that Google has in fact built a...

The New York Times has a fascinating article today about “shanzai phones” in China. These are knockoffs of existing brands but often come with interesting enhancements, such as support for multiple phone numbers and better cameras. Now one might think of a cell phone as something that is very costly to build and not an area in which one would find knockoffs (unlike, say, designer bags). What makes this possible is the network of parts suppliers that exists in China. Almost all of the global b...

The New York Times has a fascinating article today about “shanzai phones” in China. These are knockoffs of existing brands but often come with interesting enhancements, such as support for multiple phone numbers and better cameras. Now one might think of a cell phone as something that is very costly to build and not an area in which one would find knockoffs (unlike, say, designer bags). What makes this possible is the network of parts suppliers that exists in China. Almost all of the global b...

Twitter had some issues this weekend with folks sneaking Javascript code into profiles to effectively create self-replicating Twitter worms. These worms were exploiting a hole in which Twitter was not doing enough scrubbing of user inputs for the CSS customization of a profile page. While this was clearly a security flaw and had to be fixed, it does result from a basic philosophy which aims at maximum flexibility in how people use Twitter. This stands in fairly stark contrast with the very ti...

Twitter had some issues this weekend with folks sneaking Javascript code into profiles to effectively create self-replicating Twitter worms. These worms were exploiting a hole in which Twitter was not doing enough scrubbing of user inputs for the CSS customization of a profile page. While this was clearly a security flaw and had to be fixed, it does result from a basic philosophy which aims at maximum flexibility in how people use Twitter. This stands in fairly stark contrast with the very ti...

When we invested in 10gen last year, the team was working on a very ambitious approach to deliver an integrated cloud platform a la Google App Engine. While they made amazing progress on that, it turned out that developer interest was focused around the MongoDB datastore. Instead of having to buy into a complete stack, most folks (at least for now) want to continue using a broad choice of technologies and combine elements as they see fit. This appears to be one of the key factors in the treme...

When we invested in 10gen last year, the team was working on a very ambitious approach to deliver an integrated cloud platform a la Google App Engine. While they made amazing progress on that, it turned out that developer interest was focused around the MongoDB datastore. Instead of having to buy into a complete stack, most folks (at least for now) want to continue using a broad choice of technologies and combine elements as they see fit. This appears to be one of the key factors in the treme...