"Given our growth, the technologies cooking in the lab, and that we're still completing the feature set and infrastructure build out for version 1.0, I'm not worried about the future.
I don't think Google can or would want to simply replicate anything. They are pretty obsessive about the details -- Gmail took two years in development -- and they like to do things their own way. As their evolution from search engine to ad network + portal continues I think they become easier to compete with in areas outside their core."
And Richard Koman adds:
"It's worth noting that Om received a flood of Flickr love in response to his post, which tells you something about the value of building brand from the ground up."
Lately there's been a lot of speculation about whether the smaller Web 2.0 companies (e.g. Flickr, Bloglines, Feedburner, SixApart) will be able to foot it with the BigCo's (e.g. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon). Many people think the smaller companies will be acquired by the big co's - and this is actually a viable strategy for a smaller company - or be squashed by them. So it's refreshing to see one of the smaller company honchos come out and say: hey, we're not afraid of competing with Google.
One can't read too much into Stewart's response - it sounds pretty guarded and open-ended as to their future plans. Once they complete version 1.0, they may then be prepared to sell it to the likes of Google or Yahoo or Microsoft - who's to say? But I like that Stewart emphasizes that Flickr is best in its class in its niche, whereas Google is spreading itself over a number of niches these days. Good fighting talk ;-)
Flickr has built up a lot of whuffie, so that bottom-up market evolution may well be their saving grace when or if Google enters the photo-sharing market. And no I don't count Google's Picasa2 as being in the same ballgame as Flickr...yet.
]]>There's certainly a lot of speculation about Google/Yahoo/etc buying one of these small companies to get into the blog game. It's certainly only a matter of time until something happens but it won't necessarily be a good thing when it does. While google pulled blogger's fat out of the fire by acquiring them, they haven't shown much interest in keeping it competitive with Six Apart.
]]>