First I’ll start with Google’s acquisition of Jotspot. As if they didn’t get there hands on enough when they bought YouTube Google went and paid an unknown amount to buy the wiki company known as Jotspot. As Google Blogoscoped points out in the screenshots they took Jotspot already has the look and feel that Google services currently have. They are no longer letting people create accounts but one of the Jotspot developers was kind enough to provide a username and password in the Google Blogoscoped forums for users to play with it:
Site: http://sgd.jot.com/
Username: sam (at) davyson.com
Password: blogoscoped
I am very impressed at how easy the wiki is to use and edit new items. But get this…Jotspot already has their own calendar and spreadsheets available! From my recent trial there are a lot of features that Google definitely does better in their calendar and spreadsheets, but it is funny how there is a lot of overlap.
Reddit is also doing the acquisition dance because they were just acquired by Conde Nast, who is the owner of several magazines including Wired. Conde Nast doesn’t have plans to change Reddit which is important so that they don’t disrupt their current set of dedicated users. Now we all know that Digg will probably be very soon.
Well I’d be interested in seeing how Conde Nast ends up making money with reddit.
I suppose when Google said they wouldn’t be creating any new products &services they meant it!
They instead will be purchasing all of their new product & services!
Interesting to see Google more or less competing with itself much like Yahoo! does, having 2 video service websites now, YouTube vs. Google Video.
Yahoo! buy-outs and newly created services are often very similar to the point you’d think they’re competing with themselves:
The new Yahoo! Bookmarks, which doesn’t integrate with del.icio.us
Yahoo! Photos, which doesn’t interface with Flickr
Yahoo! Maps Beta vs. Yahoo! “Driving Directions”
Ask Yahoo! vs. Yahoo! Answers
Geocities vs. 360
Wow, I didn’t think about all of those different services that Yahoo offers that don’t interact with each other. Why they haven’t tried to at least do some integration with Flickr and del.icio.us is way beyond me. Two of the most popular services on the web and a lot of people I know don’t realize Yahoo! owns them. Definitely something wrong there.