[iDC] big-fish-eat-small-fish

[bernardo parrella]

Hello

I'm sure everybody is aware of some recent, important acquisitions in 
the digital UGC realm:

Google-FeedBurner, CBS-Last.fm, Fox-Photobucket, eBay-StumbleUpon

Just the latest of a long line of such buy-outs that surely won't stop here.
Some few questions came to my mind, and maybe will be interesting to 
discuss them here. I also plan to write a news story about this 
trend, in Italian.

What do you make of those recent acquisitions? What are the pro & 
cons for us as users? Is this power concentration something we'd be 
concerned about? How come that users have no say (or interest) in the 
trading of their own UGC? That's what these companies are selling & 
buying after all.

Maybe we'll end with less and less choices, and more and more 
mega-conglomerates even online...Just like in the old media world, 
independence and diversity should be valued and protected, no? Isn't 
this adding to the "walled garden" scenario? The kind of MySpace, 
Facebook, etc. with their heavy exit costs?

And such a big-fish-eat-small-fish good trend isn't just inflating 
the new dot-com bubble theory? Aren't these small companies 
valued/paid too much? Not to mention the "Google taking over the 
Internet" unavoidable truth...

About this endless Googleplex there's a nice parody (actually, a truth) here:

My Soul, and 10 Other Things that Google Owns 
http://mashable.com/2007/06/01/my-soul-and-10-other-things-that-google-owns/


-- 

thanks, ciao

--b.

http://bernyblog.wordpress.com