Online Success Lies in Community, Not Technology

Robert Scoble uses the context of Microsoft’s lack of Web 2.0 success, to talk about why some social networks such as Flickr and Facebook are more powerful than the mere technology they sit upon:

“…remember eBay? Remember how dozens of competitors tried to get into the eBay space? (and still are?)”

“Why aren’t they succeeding? Because eBay is NOT about the technology. It’s about the community and unless you have something that’ll convince the buyers and sellers all to switch all at one moment you’ll never be able to take eBay’s market away. Translation: it’s too late and eBay has huge defensibility around its business because people won’t move away from it even if you demonstrate 5x better technology.”

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