Here is an example of things to come. The world is changing in so many interesting ways that it’s difficult to catch up with most…
The best market example I know is digital photography. Who is a digital photo “consumer” any more? Nobody consumes film, and relatively few consume print processing. Instead everybody is a producer in that marketplace. I have close to eleven thousand pictures up on Flickr now. From the start Flickr (a terrific Linux/LAMP hack) and I have both understood that those pictures are my data, and that the two of us are making the most of that fact. Same goes for Tabblo*, a new company that does stuff with photos that Flickr doesn’t. Because Flickr has open APIs, and welcomes customers who also work with other vendors, I am able to make montages for printing and sharing, on Tabblo’s site, with my Flickr photosets. As a result, Flickr, Tabblo and I all make money off each other, and enjoy productive symbiotic relationships that grow the new photography marketplace.
Meanwhile, where is Kodak, owner of one of the world’s largest patent portfolios and leader of the photography industry since the dawn of the category? You tell me. Where I contribute to the market, their name almost never comes up.
