Comments on: Yahoo! and Open Sourcing Innovation

By: Josh

Josh — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 15:53:43 +0000

I was equating surprise with outside innovation…that new stuff that Jeff Bezos was talking about, that Amazon didn’t or couldn’t expect.

Of course, it is difficult to beat expectations if they are ever higher…but if systems are open, if developers can create interfaces on top of them, then I dare say that someone will always build surprising/innovative things. At least, I hope so.

I’m always amazed at how a company can make billions of dollars in revenue, and it’s only more than a footnote if they beat expectations. eBay is a good example of a company making a tremendous amount of money, more than the vast majority of companies out there, but it isn’t surprising to people who forecasted it, and therefore expected it.

So yes, for many the term surprise may be too strong, as some folks aren’t surprised by anything. I’m going to try to be surprised by everything!

By: Bill H-D

Bill H-D — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 13:55:20 +0000

Jared has a point, surprise is maybe not the best choice. I think “invention” might be though. That is, Web 2.0 is about the user as maker rather than the user as consumer.

By: Jared Spool

Jared Spool — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 04:34:55 +0000

I wonder if surprise scales.

I mean, once everybody is offering APIs, data feeds (RSS or other), Social networks, recommendation engines, etc., for everything, will be continue to be surprised by new things? Or will that be part of our expectations?