One of the main reasons why I don't like open-source is that it tries to compete in an already saturated market. It is like trying to make "an alternative to wine" in the wine districts of southern France. It is not going to work.
Note: While I am against much of the reasoning of open-source, I do approve the use of open-standards and open specifications.
We see the same with all these new search engines that are being made. People are trying to make "an alternative to Google", and guess what - they all fail. Being the "alternative" means that you will always end up in second place. The winner will always be the real deal.
If you want to be successful you need to dominate the market. You have to be the one who makes the product that other people tries to mimick.
Look at Apple and the iPhone. 3 years ago the mobile market was incredible saturated, and all the mobile manufacturers were struggling to bring out new fantastic phones with cool colors and shapes. It was probably the most difficult market to compete in.
So did Apple decide to create an alternative to this already saturated market? No of course not. They decided to change to rules. Instead of making the same type of phones that everyone else was making, they created a completely new type of mobile phone. Every other phone had keys, so Apple made one with none. They didn't try to create an alternative. They created a phone for which there was no competition. No other manufacturer made one like it.
...and yet, it was a mobile phone.
You have to do the same. Don't try to "copy" the concept and ideas of other people. If you want to create a site like Engadget, trying to be just like them isn't going to work. You have to change the rules, which, in turn, creates a new market.
When I first started to write articles here on Baekdal.com, I did pretty much the same as most other people did. I wrote about usability, web standards and AJAX - just as most other sites. And, I was getting nowhere.
So I decided to change the rules. I decided that baekdal.com should not be "just another site about usability". I decided to write about "why you should create great products". I completely dropped doing what other people did.
That decision also comes with a risk, because I dropped the topics which, at the time, accounted for 75% of my traffic. But it is a risk that is worth taking.
There is another problem that stops most people from being successful and that is "time". Nothing happens overnight.
If you read the popular press, you might think that success happens instantly. You just need to have the good idea. And in a few, and very isolated cases, it does happen that way.
Remember FreelanceSwitch.com? They came online a few years ago, and instantly, in a few weeks time, went from zero to being in the top 50,000 on Alexa. They easily surpassed most other freelance sites in the world. It was one of these onetime wonders that we all talk about. Today, that same site has dropped considerably.
Another example. Remember the girl that got a record label contract with Justin Timberlake's company after singing on YouTube (via her webcam). It was really amazing. Where is that same girl today?
This is the problem with one-time wonders. They get a lot of press and we all notice them. Most of us think that we want to be just like them, and we start to dream for that seemingly effortless path to success.
But success doesn't really work that way. It is not like winning the lottery.
Google didn't make it overnight. They had to work in the garage for a few years, not earning that much money. It took them 3 years just to get started.
Or look at "President" Barack Obama. It took 21 months of hard dedicated work, not for one person but for millions of people, to get elected for President of the United States. And it took even longer to get to that point.
Success takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of work and dedication. It is rare that anyone gets anywhere, within the first year of doing something new. In fact it is rare that you will reach the point of success within the first three years.
If you are planning to be successful in order to be able to buy a new house next month... well... then you are probably looking to get very disappointed.
If you stick it out. If you are persistent, if you have a plan and are working on a concept that "feels right", then you can make a difference.
Hi,
I normally enjoy your blog, but with this entry I think you may have some misplaced beliefs about open source.
Your site probably runs on Apache (didn't bother to check), and most sites on the net run on that. There's also Firefox (just to mention two of the many highly successful OS projects).
Heck, I'd be out of a job (or bored to tears) if it weren't for open source.
I agree with your other points about changing the rules, but I don't see how that applies (negatively) to open source.
Peace.
PS: Google wouldn't even exists if it weren't for open source.
If you want to be successful you need to dominate the market. You have to be the one who makes the product that other people tries to mimick.
Seriously? Thomas, Seriously?
You bring up Apple as an example ... and funny enough, Apple are competing in the personal computing market and have been for a LOT of years... they have not established dominance, and yet it would be hard to argue that they are not succesful.
I am sure that pumping out laptops and OS X (new version each year) is a very profitable business, even if they have no dominance in the personal computing market.
To be truly succesful, you need to measure your succes with yourself, and not with Google, Apple or the programmer for India. They are not like you, and you are not like them.
Thomas you even compare your own success with what you were doing last year, and the year before that ... compared to Scoble, you're a little fish (and I am plankton), but that doesn't mean that this blog is not succesful.
Each of us should make sure that we measure our success with the right tools, and in comparison with reasonable competition.
There is more than one way to compete in a crowded market. As you say, innovation is one of them, and probably the most interesting, but there are others.
Open source plays the card of giving more rights to its consumers. And indirectly it also helps creating innovation:
* Competitors are forced to improve. Eg, Internet Explorer is being forced to improve, even being free! (as in free beer).
* Anyone can take an open source solution and build its business _over_ it. Eg, Mac OS X core (Darwin) borrows a lot of its code from FreeBSD (among other open source projects).
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he he... that didn't take long. I mention open source once, and people are up in arms :)
Let me explain my point. I have no argue against open source, as a philosophy, freedom of choice, having alternatives, and having the freedom/flexibility to decide, is all very good. ...as a whole.
The problem is when you want to be success as an individual. Then these concepts work against you.
Obama didn't become president because he was the alternative to Bush (or McCain). He didn't become president because he gave you a choice.
He became president because he was not an alternative. He did not give you a choice. He said that the only way to move USA forward would be to choose him. Any other choice would be a bad one.
I think you should do the same. You should not give people a choice. You should not position yourself as an alternative. You should position yourself as the only one who can solve people's needs. You should be the only one who can get the job done.
You are the remarkable one, not the "alternative" - nor just one of the many choices.
Thomas, I enjoy reading your words so much. You are helping me believe again - that was Obama's genius.
" I decided that baekdal.com should not be "just another site about usability". I decided to write about "why you should create great products"."
So did it help? You cant have a statement like that without giving us any data showing pre/post strategy traffic ;-).
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Marlon, Thanks! I appreciate it.
Ian, yes it did work, quite a bit actually. The increase in traffic was roughly a 600% increase in unique visitors, and about 500% with RSS subscribers.
You say that Open Source Software (OSS) is trying to compete in what you call a «saturated market». OSS is already a huge part of this market. Let me point out some examples:
An average Nokia phone has 15 million code lines. Of these 15 million, only 0,48 is written by Nokia. The rest is written by others, mostly as OSS.
iPhone is built on Mac OS X, which again is built on BSD, an OSS operating system.
As far as I can see it, it is not about the software itself, but how the business models connected to OSS will create an advantage.
Regarding your notes on changing the rules and success, I agree.
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Exactly. This article is not about the software (open-source or not), but about how to do business. And that is about making yourself special - the only choice. The original - not the alternative.
There are, however, a lot of open source projects that is not designed based on this. They are specifically designed to be the alternative. To be one of many choices. I do not think that is a good way to achieve success.
In any case, this article is not about open source at all, or people's feelings towards it. It is about you, and what you should do to make yourself special.
You are quite right, success takes time and effort. And in todays creative economy, change is the only constant; and changing the game's rule is at times all the edge you need.
And adding fuel to the OSS fire, OSS changed the software market rules. As todays producers (bloggers, coders, designers and
Thanks for an excellent blog Thomas ^_^ \m/
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Yousef
I totally agree with you. The hard part is trying to get that out-of-the-box idea. Some people just seem to be gifted with creativity and are then followed by the mimicking flock of sheep. The only reason why it would be a good idea to "copy" a product or service is if you're company is already huge and you are just trying to cover that part of the competition with a similar product like the iPhone and the HTC Touch Diamond. The iPhone obviously came first but some people (like yourself I guess) prefer the alternative over the original. Of course this is not always the case but for a big company like Samsung it wouldn't matter that much anyway they'de cover the production costs etc. in no time.