Benson Wong wrote:
On 2/23/06, Laura Scott <laura@pingv.com> wrote:
This comes down to the question of whether the disruptive technologies and economies of this new era can truly compete with the centralized megacorp models.
What do you mean by this? Is Drupal considered a distruptive technology? What makes it disruptive? (I've been living under a rock for a while...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_technology -- And I think the concept bleeds into disruptive economies, as well. I suppose that's what Seth Godin et al. have been blogging about all these years now. Also the Cluetrain.
the opposite end of the paradigm, and appeals to different people who think differently than those who want the corporate-sponsored service.
Who uses AOL and who puts their internet services together themselves? Who blogs on Blogger and who downloads Wordpress or MT (or Drupal!) and does it themselves?
What Google does certainly is worth noticing, given how huge they are. But I truly wonder at how a megacorp can compete in a marketplace that's all about personal empowerment, which is where we, in all our Drupal-related niches, live.
I think you need to make a distinction between what kind of personal empowerment you're talking about.
Drupal does not empower the majority of the public, it's too hard to use. It empowers programmers and systems integrators.
I'm not talking about the majority of the public -- I'm talking about the long tail, again. Anything owned and branded by Google is not going to be empowering, in the end -- not if there are licensing ownership issues involved.
Blogger, Pages, Typepad, that empowers the general public. People who are very intelligent and skilled in something other than web application installation. There are way more of these people than PHP programmers and sysadmins.
These systems empower people, yes, but only as long as it's convenient and/or profitable for the megacorps.
Competing with Blogger and Typepad isn't really what Drupal is about. Leave that to companies like Bryght.
I believe we are in agreement here.
Drupal development should be focused on solutions, on buildling the #1 OS CMS. I honestly think we're almost there. Add in i18n support, make it easier to use, and we got a world class product.
I feel that Drupal "should" become what the community makes of it. It's that organic quality that gives it much relevance and appeal. Laura