>>5. Starve existing (and possible) social networks of users through network effects and platform lock-in (done)
This is what Microsoft did. Maybe not necessarily with "social networks," but in principle. The fact that this little iteration of 'lock-in' is both preceded and followed by a "getting investment money" cycle would be a cause of alarm to me if I were a potential facebook investor or employee. Scratch the "investment" word and you're left with just "getting money." Welcome to the real world.
Lock-in is not a sustainable means of long-term growth, revenue, or profit. Obfuscating code behind a bunch of platform-specific run-around gibberish and license lawsuit nonsense doesn't benefit users and gives developers major headaches. Lawyers do seem to like it, though, since they always are "getting money".
As history has shown, superior, non-obfuscated, legal, free! open-source code will inevitably appear on the outside of any lock-in. Lock-in creates something known in management as "groupthink" and it's almost never (ouch, sorry for the pun) "group_wise_". Groupthink causes those on the inside to value that which is on the inside > the market is able to value it. There's a reason disclosure is required in the world of securities: it's called "insider trading."
So for long-term strategy, I'd say facebook flubbed bigtime by being greedy. Being greedy ala-Microsoft and "not accepting anything less than a billion" or . . . whatever the tipping point was that caused them to jump in the stew with Microsoft specifically . . . that was really just not smart. Trying to be too many things to too many people?
The Internet was built for niche markets. I'm hopeful on the open source niche. :)
This is what Microsoft did. Maybe not necessarily with "social networks," but in principle. The fact that this little iteration of 'lock-in' is both preceded and followed by a "getting investment money" cycle would be a cause of alarm to me if I were a potential facebook investor or employee. Scratch the "investment" word and you're left with just "getting money." Welcome to the real world.
Lock-in is not a sustainable means of long-term growth, revenue, or profit. Obfuscating code behind a bunch of platform-specific run-around gibberish and license lawsuit nonsense doesn't benefit users and gives developers major headaches. Lawyers do seem to like it, though, since they always are "getting money".
As history has shown, superior, non-obfuscated, legal, free! open-source code will inevitably appear on the outside of any lock-in. Lock-in creates something known in management as "groupthink" and it's almost never (ouch, sorry for the pun) "group_wise_". Groupthink causes those on the inside to value that which is on the inside > the market is able to value it. There's a reason disclosure is required in the world of securities: it's called "insider trading."
So for long-term strategy, I'd say facebook flubbed bigtime by being greedy. Being greedy ala-Microsoft and "not accepting anything less than a billion" or . . . whatever the tipping point was that caused them to jump in the stew with Microsoft specifically . . . that was really just not smart. Trying to be too many things to too many people?
The Internet was built for niche markets. I'm hopeful on the open source niche. :)