O'Reilly: The Web is at war, and it's making me sad

NEW YORK--Web pioneer and conference honcho Tim O'Reilly warned the audience at the Web 2.0 Expo here on Tuesday afternoon that he thinks "we're headed into another ugly time." Namely, everybody is just being really nasty to each other. And it makes his hippie soul hurt.

For example, Rupert "Dr. Evil" Murdoch keeps threatening to pull News Corp.'s pay wall-guarded content from Google, perhaps offering an exclusive deal to another search engine for one hundred billion dollars (give or take a few bucks).

Those ubiquitous URL-shortening toolbars are throwing Web addresses behind a cloak of invisibility, O'Reilly said, and they "don't let you navigate freely like the Web used to work." With Google's Chrome hurling itself into the mix, the browser and operating-system wars are starting to look less "Mean Girls" and more "Aliens vs. Predator."

But O'Reilly's attitude isn't "bring it on, and get me a large popcorn with extra butter, while you're at it." Rather, he hinted that at least in some cases, he's willing to embrace Google as a big, cuddly, benevolent dictator in the midst of it all. It's "a monopoly that's a service of value to users," he said, adding that generally, when Google makes a product with the primary goal of one-upping the competition--Knol vs. Wikipedia, Checkout vs. PayPal--it's not a success.

That's probably because, at least right now, among all the giant robots stomping about the series of tubes, Google is the one that most resembles O'Reilly's vision of the "open Web." In a blog post prior to his speech, he predicted that Microsoft could take over this role. Or not. Either way, he insisted that "it's time for developers to take a stand."

Setting off this kind of electric shock in the Web's punditocracy is a great way to drum up attention and newsworthiness that doesn't have anything to do with philosophizing about the recession, extolling the possibilities of the real-time streaming Web, or predicting which dot-com figurehead is going to be the most plastered at South by Southwest this year. Thank goodness! That stuff was getting so boring!

And O'Reilly's rallying cry has already gathered reactions. Barbarian Group executive Rick Webb, for one, posted a colorful retaliatory blog post, in which he said that "setting aside the 'boo hoo, the Internet is becoming a bunch of walled gardens' arguments, when rational people have conversations about how to make the Web actually usable and not 95 percent piracy, spam, and fraud, almost every discussion starts with the proposition that there is no other realistic option but to chuck the whole thing and start over."

Of course, the Web should be in a state of "war." When have things been any different? It's a hub of innovation, competition, and constant change, and I think we all knew that already. The barrier to entry is low enough so that if there's a glaring problem with something, users will flock to whoever can create a better alternative. In fact, O'Reilly brought that up on Tuesday, when he talked about expensive in-car GPS navigation systems.

"The turn-by-turn directions from TeleAtlas cost $99 [on the iPhone], but Google is giving it away for free. This is a natural kind of extension for Google. I don't think Google is being evil here by being disruptive," O'Reilly said. "That's a massive user win, even though it is incredibly damaging to some existing companies and some existing business models. When Google offers free speech recognition, [that would be] an amazing win."

Is that legitimate innovation? Yes. But let's hope the "win" doesn't stop there. If Google manages to throw a sucker punch to Apple, Microsoft, or whoever else by offering something once-pricey for free, I should hope that the rest of the industry makes sure that it doesn't grow too complacent.

So let's get this straight: monopolies are bad, unless they're "nice" ones on behalf of companies that extol the virtues of Razor scooters, wheatgrass smoothies, and lava lamps. Competition is great, as long as everybody's nice to each other.

Doesn't quite make sense to me. But, hey, it's his show.

[cube3]

considering the web2.0 meme was based on using others works and efforts to get "free content" to redistribute on your servers , serving your banner ads..... <br /> <br />it should now be mean, such is the balance needed. it was a unethical hot tubbers scam on the populas. <br /> <br />to bad he and his types created the " feelings" <br /> <br />groove to it... <br /> <br />new earth army and all.

[Squeedle]

what? can you please translate this into English?

[satcomer]

What the Android does is show that turn by turn directions on the iPhone App Store are ridiculously priced! Unless the turn by turn directions come down in the $20 -$30 range I will never buy any of those overpriced bloatwares.

[codynews]

Google maps has turn by turn directions on the iphone. What are you talknig about. The option to see turn/by/turn is right next to "traffic". And since on the map I can see my little blnking blue dot, along with a big purple trail on the road to follow, I'm not sure how finding something could be easier.<br /><br />Cody

[spacydog]

So if Google provides a once-pricey service or product for free, that's innovation and it's fine? When Microsoft does it, say with IE or Windows media player, it's not? What kind of logic is that? They're both monopolies!

[technewsjunkie]

Google is not a monopoly in GPS mapping. Netscape wasn't pricey. But is was a threat to Windows. Netscape was the innovator.<br />If you have a monopoly in Windows and then you use that monpoly to distribute free crucial software ike a web browser and media player, that's abuse. Let those products win on their merits in the marketplace for a fair price.

[loismustdie331]

The difference is that Google is open source and they do a good job making their products compatible. Internet Explorer is Windows only and Windows Media Player only makes new releases available for Windows.

[lokanadam]

before deciding who is good and who is evil just ask google to make its search engine OPEN SOURCE

[lokanadam]

before deciding who's good or evil, just ask google to OPEN SOURCE its search engine

[dylerl]

I think anyone with the last name O'Reilly is insane, if he thinks google is open because they are nice and drink crappy wheatgrass he is insane, Google is at a very dangerous stage in my opinion yes they use open source products and are open but make a huge profit off of them, they are not doing this to be nice they are doing this to be bigger than the competition and make more money off this, they are just as evil as the next company and they are no different!!! And they are slowly becoming a monopoly that may not be stopped if people don't watch out. If you think that Apple's development process for the iPhone is horrid then what happens if google does control an equal percentage with Android are they going to stick it to developers then as well? They are at a point where they can do anything they want and they are starting to sound like they should control the entire computer industry(they are starting to sound like Bill Gates and Microsoft sounded in the nineties), Google needs to be watched and if people like O'Reilly let them get away with this because they are nice then us consumers are going to be royally screwed and will limit our choices!!!

[RickRussellTX]

"monopolies are bad, unless they're "nice" ones on behalf of companies that extol the virtues of Razor scooters"<br /><br />Name one market in which Google has a monopoly -- that is, where there are no competing mainstream products.<br /><br />There isn't one. Google is the largest competitor in some markets, and seems to be objectively the best in some. But every product or service they offer is in a market swimming with competitors, many of them free (some as in freedom, some as in beer, sometimes both) -- every pricing decision they make must consider this fact. That's *nothing* like a monopoly.

[ewelch]

Tell the Chinese dissidents who were outed by Google who is and isn't evil.

[gfsdfge]

Geeks Invent things. Some geeks have enough savvy to run a start-up company long enough to be bought by a real business. Real businesses rarely invent anything; they buy things and re-brand them. <br />Technology went retail in the late 90's. That means real business folks will run things. Not geeks. Geeks have this wonderful view of a rosy world where they don't get wedgies anymore. Well, they might not get wedgies now, but their somewhat socialist views are not going to prevail. Capitalism will (in the US anyway). It's mean and nasty by design, but it's all we have right now. Maybe in a few years the Chinese will perfect their mix of capitalism and socialism and we can adopt that model. I doubt it though. In the mean time, geeks like O'Reilly will continue to cry that everyone is not playing nice. And they will be right. We've been doing it to each other for the length of recorded history in one fashion or another.