Web Services in the Mist
More and more, the entrepreneurs we see present their business in the context of an ecosystem. This is a healthy development because it acknowledges the complexity of the environments within which start-ups operate today. Technology generally and web services in particular are no longer exist in their own world, they are increasingly part of the world. Ecology may be a good model for understanding some of these complex interdependencies, but, Fred pointed out earlier this week that maybe it’s not just ecology, maybe its science. Maybe, as web services become an integral part of all of our lives, they must learn to exist in a world that is best understood by analogy to all of the sciences.
Here, for example, is an analogy from biology:
Last fall, Wired ran a story about the sequencing of the Chimpanzee’s genome. One of the most striking revelations was how close it was to ours. Depending on how you count, we humans share 96-99% of the genes in Chimpanzees.
So what does that have to do with web services? Many of the services we see are lightweight hacks (I use that term with reverence) on top of a huge shared hardware software and communications infrastructure. If you were to analyze the entire infrastructure necessary for the delivery of two different web services including the code in the chips, operating systems, browsers and communications systems, you might find that 96-99% of the code necessary to deliver the services is identical.
On the other hand, just as we would like to think that the 1-4% of our genes that we do not share with chimpanzees makes a big difference, the creators of innovative web services argue correctly that the difference between one web service and another is huge.
At the risk of pushing the analogy to the breaking point, it is interesting to think about the difference between web services of the same “species”. One could argue that they share almost all the same DNA, and yet subtle differences can still have a huge impact. Ari Paparo, the founder of an early web based bookmarking service recently compared his service BLINXPro and Delicious. He points out that two subtle distinctions in the implementation made an enormous difference in the outcome:
1) Blinx mimicked Windows’ hierarchical file system – Del.icio.us used tags to organize bookmarks and 2) Blinx’s default was to keep bookmarks private - Del.icio.us’ default was to share them.
Ari’s insight may also explain why Delicious continues to grow despite being surrounded by many apparently similar services.
Are there any practical applications of this insight? I think so. The entrepreneurs who build the most successful web services will recognize that they share 99% of the same genome with their competitors. They will eagerly exploit any and all of the infrastructure services they can in order to focus their energy to create the most useful innovation within the 1% of code that is not shared. They will also recognize that even the subtle differentiation between them and their direct competitors can still make a big difference, and they will continuously refine their thinking in a dialogue with their users in an effort to get it “just right”.
Next, we’ll try physics.
January 12, 2006 12:06 PM, By Brad Burnham
Tags: chimpanzees ecology environment webservies
Comments (7)
Brad, that is a brilliant post. The final paragraph is one of the smartest i've read...those are the words and philosophies that we live by!
Posted by eric goldstein , January 12, 2006 11:04 PM
I like the analogy. It illuminates your important point v. well.
Posted by Rob Wiesenberg , January 13, 2006 09:54 AM
I wonder, is it just the 1% of code? Del.icio.us also has an understated cool factor that's hard to pinpoint. Salesforce.com has a marketing CEO in Benioff that may be part of their 1% difference. Patagonia has an employee culture and core customer culture (Patagonia ambassadors) that REI, North Face, and others can't match.
Posted by Brooks Jordan , January 13, 2006 12:38 PM
I've always thought of myself as one of those Russian stoics from a Doystoyevski, and now I have a name to match it. From now on I am "Paparov!"
Posted by Ari Paparo , January 13, 2006 09:00 PM
Interesting post Brad, but I do wonder about a couple of things from a VC's perspective;
1. is the 1% enough of a difference to fund a company?
2. how much was Ari/Blikx no-go a condition of what the market wanted at that time?
Posted by Michael Sevilla , January 25, 2006 08:04 PM
So, i was "googling my name" and discovered you Brad. My name is also Brad Burnham and I am a senior computer major at a small university. Imagine That. emailme, ill prove it.
Bradb (at) southern (dot) edu
Brad
Posted by Brad Burnham #2 , February 10, 2006 08:53 PM
Great post! In my experience as a VC, everybody initially comes with "we are unique". This is of course false. Most business, regardless of industry is very similar (we do something that adds value and hopefully we take in more than we spend). Differentiating from the competition is difficult, but worth the effort.
Posted by Darren Fast , January 12, 2006 09:23 PM