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May 26, 2006
Nick Carr Stomps His Feet
I'm hesitant to write this, because like paying attention to a child who stomps his feet or holds his breath, it just encourages him, but I'll do it anyway: While I generally like Nick Carr -- he's a graceful and thoughtful writer -- he has become tiresome and reflexively contrarian.He did it recently with a sensationalized piece on the death of Wikipedia, and he did it again with a silly hatchet job on Steve Rubel, and he's doing it again today with a studiedly awry piece on l'affaire O'Reilly.
Turning to the last one first, I agree with Nick that the personal attacks on Tim are inappropriate and unwarranted, so let's leave that aside. The issue is whether or not there is anything legimately concerning in obtaining a service mark for a class of technologies -- "Web 2.0" -- and then attempt to control how that service mark is used. Here is the nut of Nick's argument:
If you'd like to receive a similar [cease-and-desist] letter, announce today that you're coming out with an operating system named Vista or a magazine named the New Yorker or a golf tournament named the Masters. Although all three of those are generic, descriptive, commonplace terms, they are also, when applied to a particular type of product, trademarks.C'mon Nick, these are different things. First, Web 2.0, as used, describes a broad and emerging range of technologies, not a single event or product owned by a single company, and encouraging that usage without ever indicating the term is a service mark in registration is going to piss people off. And as I said before, if the service mark had simple been for Web20Con this wouldn't be a problem.
Second, while legal and permissible, people understandably feel it is incongruous for O'Reilly to be associated with a company, CMP, that is enforcing a service mark for a broad technology platform in such a narrow context. Put more pragmatically, people intuitively sense that there is more money for an O'Reilly (or even a CMP) to make from further popularizing Web 2.0 than by controlling the mark, so why control the mark (unless Web 2.0 is a fraud, say the inevitable conspiracy theorists). Deeper yet into O'Reilly's genetic makeup, this is the essence of the essentially O'Reilly-constructed open source argument: When you let go of platforms, you make more money from them.
Funny thing: Nick knows all this. He's too smart not to. But while over-cooked contrarianism has been Nick's schtick right back to "IT doesn't matter" at HBR (my friend Mathew Ingram calls Nick a "one-shtick pony"), his recent rhetoric is increasingly unnuanced, over-cynical and thin in these exaggerated "look at me" pieces. He is like a traffic-starved and even more knee-jerk John Dvorak.
Charitably, I think Nick has fallen into the columnist trap of writing for effect, not out of conviction. He ends up writing left-handed, crankish claptrap, a sentiment with which Nick will almost certainly disagree, as he does with everything -- whether he believes himself or not.
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Nick is a grump and his schtick wears thin on some. I tend to like voices that spout unpopular opinions because that is where the real edge reside...somewhere between common thought and that lonely cynical voice....I like contrarians in general, that is why I read you Paul;-)
One thing is certain: Nick Carr is very nice writer. I wish I could write like that.
Paul: "He ends up writing left-handed, crankish claptrap ..."
No need to bring left-handedness into it!
I don't have a problem with the contrarian either, I tend to be one myself. However, I find that Nick's slight of "Open-source" in his title ("Open-source trademarks") is pretty weak, but in the process he brings up a good point.
"The mob", as he refers to the many who are annoyed by O'Reilly right now, is not calling for "Open-source trademarks", but rather some common sense in tradmarking common language. Is the English language "Open-source"? Well, in a manner of speaking (no pun intended :), in the way all people contribute to it as it evolves.
Since "Web 2.0" has been effectively in the public domain of language, it's offensive when someone attempts to trademark and control it.
Furthermore, adding the "2.0" moniker to indicate change in a market or segment is not all that original. Anyone recall a little magazine called "Business 2.0"? Right.
btw, I'm left-handed too. :)
Paul, I've posted a strategy that O'Reilly could have used to remain aligned with their stated principals: O'Reilly, Get Real
Paul,
Thanks for the kind words. :-)
I have to sincerely disagree with your characterization of my argument in this case as "studiously awry." I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I don't think it's an apt description. O'Reilly et al. created a conference that they named the Web 2.0 Conference. At that time, hardly anyone was using the term "Web 2.0" - a few scattered references, perhaps, with various meanings - and no one was using it in the way O'Reilly et al. defined it. And certainly no one was using it for a conference - nor had anyone, I'll bet, even thought of using it as a conference name. "Web 2.0" was at that time purely a creation of O'Reilly et al. O'Reilly et al. had every right in the world, therefore, to get a trademark on the use of "Web 2" in a conference name, and they went through the prescribed, proper process to get that trademark. In the wake of their coinage, Web 2.0 has become a very popular term - with the meaning O'Reilly et al. came up with. To argue that because they came up with a term that became popular - that filled, apparently, a real need - they should now be somehow prohibited from using it as a trademark for a conference they invented is - wouldn't you grant this? - a little bit perverse? I would think that the fact that their invention has proved so valuable underscores their right to own it as a trademark for their conference. Now, you may disagree with this line of argument, but I fail to see how you can dismiss it out of hand as "studiously awry." I happen to believe strongly in people's right to control their intellectual property. Remember, we wouldn't be having this discussion at all if O'Reilly et al. hadn't created the term, in what has since become it's common sense, and the conference.
Now, your other argument is that its use as a trademark offends your sensibilities. Clearly, it offends a lot of people's sensibilities. It doesn't happen to offend mine. Does that mean my sensibilities are illegitimate?
I'm sorry, but I think there are two sides to this question.
Nick