It does seem as though Web 2.0 is not really about attempting to go-it-alone and making independent success (as was the apparent trend in Web 1.0) more about greek-alphabet soup acquisitions and buy-outs.
Anyway, I’m not the first to make this point, but it does seem that most end up being picked up in beta.. or alpha. Etc: Measure Map gets acquired by Google in something like the Alpha phase. Delicious was probably in gamma, flickr said beta but was more like delta.
Anyway, now we’ve got an arms race between Google and Yahoo for my soul. Microsoft is trying to catch up, but remains mostly irrelevant.
Kind of makes you wonder: is there room for the independent in The Acquisition Economy 2.0?
…Especially when you can buy just an employee and leave his company behind?
Factory Joe 