Adam Bosworth writes about services:
The value is coming from the community and the reputation and the content, not the tool used to author the post which is largely irrelevant.
Services will need to provide value to justify themselves, not data lock in. The value may be in the form of additional information, community discussion, ratings, search, data management, publishing features, relieving you of the tedium/cost of operations or monetization, but they will need to deliver value in a way where, if the value isn’t there, you can walk.
Even iTunes which is lauded as a sucess in the comments hasn’t evolved much for me and still, for example, has no community features. Even peer to peer ones. I can’t chat with my son and say listen to what I’m listening to. But as long as they evolve rapidly, great.
But I will still argue that in general, the value comes from the information, the community, the collaboration. The radio hit a certain point and then was good enough. It was a commodity. The content played over the radio, on the other hand, has continued to be of huge value. Sure new radios come out all the time with new bells and whistles. Compared to a new talk station (pleasing or infuriating or a great new song) how much do we really care? Sure iPod currently has made a business by tying itself to a service, but at some point, it will be like the radio, I predict and have gotten good enough.
