The problem with standing on the shoulders of giants 18 Apr 2007

If you've spent any time exploring the wonderful world of Web 2.0, you'll have seen how many startups are building their businesses around third party content and services. Seems that everyone is experimenting with mashups these days. But is this really a wise idea?

The owners of Flock used to think so. But recent developments may have changed their minds.

Flock is a privately-backed browser that's built on top of the Mozilla Firefox code base. It's unique selling point being the integration of a number of "social" features - including the seamless incorporation of Flickr or photobucket photostreams, social bookmarking tools like Del.icio.us or Shadows, a blogging tool, social search and an RSS reader (to name but a few).

"Sounds cool," you say, "so what's the problem?"

Well, earlier this month, Mozilla Labs announced that it's adding the majority of these features into Firefox. That's right - the product that underpins Flock has now become a direct competitor - and a formidable one at that.

Think about it: Why would users want to install an extended version of Firefox, when the standard version of Firefox offers the same set of features?

What's happening to Flock is nothing new, as Allen Stern of CenterNetworks points out:

"Back in the early '90s, as companies developed their office-like software, once their app became popular and successful, the next revision of Microsoft Office would include those features. So what happened to those companies? They closed. This happened numerous times (and still happens today). In a lot of discussions round the office, most felt that this is how Microsoft innovated. They either bought other companies or just 'borrowed' their ideas and put them into Office."

Something to think about for all those developing services on the back of APIs offered by Google, eBay, Amazon, AOL, Windows Live and Yahoo! too.