What? Exactly. From Fast Company:

On Microsoft being a fast follower: "[Look at] RealOne: We shipped a media player before that company was founded, period." Yep, and after QuickTime.

On whether it is better to be first: "Oh, it's always better to be first. Actually, it's very expensive." True enough, but how bad is it when you're nicking ideas from a company a tenth your size? Clearly money does not buy innovation.

And here's one to hold on to: "...[someday] every student will be taking notes on a tablet."

Man, what a world to live in.

So I though I was in heaven when U2 teamed up with Apple. What is this, Christmas? My new Business 2.0 arrived today with a look at Apple's new mini-stores, Firefox and Jon Gales (fellow MacMerc).

Ah, symbiosis. We all win.

Now that we can no longer blame the bubble burst for failing dot-com business plans, and Microsoft has bagged its .Net subscription plan it's time to look at what makes a commercial web-based application work.

Free Access

Make a bare-bones free account. To generate meaningful feedback and build a community, you need to get registered users. Example: Blogger

Bag Quotas

Disk space is a commodity - not your competitive advantage. Be generous (a la Gmail) with your space. Remember: hard drive space is cheap. Example: Gmail, Flickr

Leverage Content

You're not in the disk space business, so what business are you in? If you're a photo site, sell prints. If you're Gmail, generate ads from email content. Example: Webshots, Google

This last point is where the real money is to be made. You're supplying the space, be smart about the potential applications of the content.

This is where Six Apart needs to set themselves apart. They have the legitimacy to leverage partnerships that would add value to the tomes of thought TypePad users knock out daily. The Movable Type code isn't a competitive advantage. In the long run they need to figure out new revenue streams from the content they host.

Example: I can't for the life of me figure out why no one has combined a CafePress-style one-off book printing service for their bloggers. Just seems like a no-brainer.

Can't believe I didn't think of this earlier...

Don't get it? Read this.

I think we have an early answer about Open Source's impact on the industry. Rumors, if true, that Google is kicking out a Mozilla-based browser shows at least one company that is ready to leverage open source to deliver services.

Years of effort by thousands of Open Source programmers have effectively negated the strategic advantage of Internet Explorer. How so? By commoditizing the software. Thanks to thousands of lines of free code, there is now virtually no barrier to entry in the browser biz. Although we don't know if Microsoft ever had an exit strategy for IE to earn any money, we know that don't anymore.

So what does Google want in a commodity market? Revenue from services. This is something MS has failed to make work, that Google has been capitalizing on: web services.

Yeah, so what does MS lose? Their pants if they don't learn a lesson. Browsers are easy but what happens when Linux turns the Operating System into a commodity? Yeah, that's what I mean.

It is interesting that in the same week Russian Mac users are petitioning for Russian localization of OS X Tiger that Russia is named as a major offender in global CD piracy. Of course, this study was limited to music CDs, not software but it isn't hard to guess why Apple, Microsoft and others are hesitant to turn out Russian versions of their software.

I should say this is nothing I have against Russians. In fact I lived in Ukraine for two years and speak Russian. Having lived in the former Soviet Union, I also know you can buy Windows on the street for $5.

If anything, I'm as anti-Microsoft and pro-freeware as you can be. But I do believe in honoring licenses. And I'm confident you can find a Linux distribution with Russian support or tweak the Cyrillic support already in the OS. Just don't count on a change of heart until the atmosphere improves.

Things like this frustrate me: companies that don't know how to make money on free products. You can, by the way. It involves a marketing strategy - like up-sells to a pro version. What you have to avoid: punishing your best customers.

The folks at Six Apart should be smarter than this. Type Pad, a reasonably priced commercial license and free MT and the now defunct MT Pro would have been an enviable product mix.

If you have to almost triple your licensing fees to cover costs, then you are growing too fast at the expense of your customers. Maybe this is the result of a VC cash induced delusions of grandeur.

I'm not against them making any money. In fact, I think this decision will lose them money. Movable Type - as good as it is, is only a few steps ahead of other free solutions. And there's nothing more annoying to web developers than complex, per user licenses. And that is the community put MT on top.

Think Donald Trump has tied up the best in business? Think again.
You may have gathered that I'm a marketing MBA in my first year, and in the spirit of shameless self-promotion I'm announcing my availability to intern this summer.

Indeed, for the cost of a desk, computer and three months' pay you could have:

• Three years of marketing experience, including trade show and new product launch expertise
• Cutting edge marketing concepts including viral, contextual and one-to-one marketing
• A plethora if fresh ideas and creative thinking, with a tireless work ethic to match

What a deal!
Grab the details at hire.brianburnham.com.

The MBA is quickly becoming a commodity. Accounting can be taught to well-mannered monkeys and the remainder outsourced. So, what if anything distinguishes business students?

You read the title and know where I'm going: creativity. They teach it at Stanford's business school. I don't doubt that creative thinking is the last differentiator of truly valuable businessmen. But can you teach creativity?

Nope, you can't. Most creativity-inspiring exercises are as effective as a dime-store motivational speaker. This is because creativity, like leadership and desire are caught, not taught. They are contagious.

So? Surround yourself with creative people and beat down bureaucracy that can stifle it. And don't be surprised if you paying - or getting paid a premium for creative thought.

My search for a summer MBA marketing internship is taking me to San Fran next week. I'll be scaling walls and bugging offices between interviews and lunch at Seven.

If you know of any opportunities, let me know (hire AT brianburnham DOT com) or, if you'd like to play along at home, visit my job search page. I'll be back with an update, so stay tuned.

Just over a week into the new year, and a couple forward-thinking men are already asking us to buy into their visions of the future.

George W wants to go to Mars via a Lunar settlement. Goals like this, though expensive, reap nice rewards. In the end, the best leaders understand that moving the spirit of the people is what takes you places. Having already brought us through a controversial war, a cosmic goal like this could lift an America out of the doldrums of recession and terrorism.

Will it be ridiculously expensive? You bet. But you can't put a price on national pride, and that's what you'll get. America is at its best when trying to do hard things.

Steve Jobs is once more pioneering a new industry. His most important announcement this week wasn't even at MacWorld. HP branded iPods are proof that Apple is out to own music, and could be a perfect deal for both companies. iTunes on every HP and an iPod in every pocket, right? Don't forget Pepsi and the Super Bowl. And then there's the new iPod mini.

Why is it ridiculously expensive? Because Apple wants to make its money on design and innovation rather than cost-savings. And I think they will sell. I sure would have liked to see cheaper iPods, but then again I wanted to see .Mac stay free. Oh well.

Either way, we have two men here who know how to market dreams. And really isn't spending too much and believing your dreams into reality what this country is all about?

One of the more interesting new trends in the world of business and the Internet is in the arena of networking. Business 2.0 has chosen this as their new technology of the year.

Of the many groups developing this "technology", two have emerged as the most popular. The two I have tried are LinkedIn (run by a former PayPal exec) and Tribe.net. Both allow you to find contacts, jobs, employees and business partners.

I chose LinkedIn to feature on Freeloader Friday. I found Tribe.net a little over-run with features, cluttered and most importantly lacked a business emphasis. Tribe.net is a good place to find fellow programmers and people with a common hobby.

LinkedIn has a very high quality bunch of people. Search around and you'll find Senior Directors, VP's and CEO's. You'll need a good pitch to get them to accept your request for contact. I'm a little easier, try me...

More than a few are wondering what Google has in store with its new toy, Blogger. No one doubts that blogging is the newest and hottest thing on the web, but as of yet, no one's got a clue how to make money with it.
And neither did I, until late last night...

I was in the middle of one of those "I'm a spy saving the world" dreams, when I was inexplicably awakened by the following idea. "What's the biggest weakness with blogs?" I asked my sleepy self. Integration. What do I mean? Stick with me here...

Brian publishes a blog post about toe fungus. This new piece of crap/knowledge/data is available for the world to see, but it is indexed only in context of Brian's Blog. In an ideal blogging world, as I published my treatise on toe fungus, it would be instantly published or linked to other fungus-releated posts.

This is where Google, with its crazy knack for keyword indexing, comes in. Perhaps in a happier, Googlier world, our published posts will be automatically screened for keywords and published in like blogs or forums. Or, more likely we will find ourselves satisfying our interest in toe fungus on blogs.google.com: a blog search engine which cross-indexes blog posts by topic.

Imagine being able to scan the titles of all "Apple iPod Hack" posts added this morning from various authors. And, of course, Google could serve up iPod Accessory ads a la text in the sidebar. The difference between this and your average run-of-the-mill Google search? Immediacy. By "pinging" Google with new posts (something Blogger will likely do automatically), new material can be gathered and indexed as it is published.

Crazy, huh? Well, so is Powering aircraft with lasers. And people are already doing it. Then again, people were already doing search before Google came.

Anyway, it could have been the bed-head talking, but in case it happens, you heard it here first.

I'm an avid reader of Business 2.0 and in this month's issue I couldn't help but laugh at this story called "Mr. Gates and the Hunt for Search"

In it the author mention's Microsoft's thrust to integrate web search into its "Longhorn" release of Windows. The feature would "let you search the web abd your local hard drive in the same interface". If you're not laughing already, Apple's Sherlock did this ages ago.

Microsoft seems sometimes to be its own worst ememy, doesn't it?