
What if Zuck invented the web? - idiginous
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2010/05/15/whatIfZuckInventedTheWeb.html
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samatman
If Zuck had invented the web...

It would look a lot like AOL. Huge, proprietary, popular with the public,
overvaluated in the market, and fatally committed to platform over protocol.

Remember when AOL bought Time-Warner? This has all happened before. Unless
Facebook takes a radically different turn, the first competitor to solve the
graph problem is going to eat their lunch.

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telemachos
People seem to be responding to the title rather than the content of this
article. Funny enough, but the linked post is actually not about that thought
experiment. It's Winer's response to someone else writing about the "What
if?".

Winer more or less defends Zucker via the Joe Hewitt argument that the web is
stagnating, that the web is not a sufficiently rich platform for apps and that
the only (best?) way to move forward is to innovate on one's own without (any?
too much?) consideration for standards.

I don't even understand this argument, to be frank. Winer says "We were making
richer software than the stuff you can run in the web browser 20 years ago."
But he gives no examples. I don't know what he has in mind, but really? Richer
than 280slides? Richer than Gmail? Richer than Etherpad? Really?

As for the stagnating web, I don't buy that either. Even if it isn't all
rainbows and ponies, there's a _lot_ going on with web-based software in the
last few years - arguably far more than on the desktop.

Edit: here's the original thought experiment post

[http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2010/05/15/if-mark-
zuckerber...](http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2010/05/15/if-mark-zuckerberg-
invented-the-web)

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axiom
Dear god. I just realized that Mark Zuckerberg is the new Bill Gates. I give
it another week before trolls all over the web start writing referring to
Facebook as Fa$ebook.

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mattwdelong
He did, in his dreams. However, reality slapped him in the face and he
hopefully woke up.

Now i'm not so much interested in what he/facebook has done, but what they
will be doing - I think this matters most. My thoughts are that they will
still be heading in the same direction with the same plan, but just less
transparent about it.

~~~
FluidDjango
Actually, there's evidence (plenty posted on HN) that he's still hitting the
snooze button.

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sli
Luckily, he didn't. No need to give each other nightmares, is there?

