I think there are a few ways to address your question.

1. Participants will benefit from having the choice of which phone they want to use and it will not be network dependent

2. It has been proven that Open Source developmental environments stir innovation (i.e. Wordpress)

3. Carriers will no longer be able to compete on the types of phones that they have; they will have to compete on price or value added services.

I think all of these benefit participants of the Mobile Ecosystem.

Thanks so much for the question!

That spokeo does scare the hell out of me, but with these new social networks, we put that much information about ourselves out there. You don’t even have to use spokeo, do a google search to find out what is out there about you, and I’m quite sure that you’ll see open networks in a possibly different light.

As far as the WSJ – I’m quite sure that in advertising alone, they could make up the costs. It sounds like to me WSJ is making the argument that the Wall Street Journal is “privileged”.

- Nexeus Fatale

WSJ is in a really tough spot which the Blodget post highlights. If they open up, they face the risk of diluting the quality of their brand. If they attract less quality readers, they wont be able to charge as high a CPM and risk losing the A readers they already have.

I agree, however, that opening up is the way to go. Once open, however, WSJ should make sure that their communication strategy to their readers is such that the non A crowd wont want to spend time on the site. I dont have a good answer on exactly how thats done but do think they need to do something to preserve the quality of their brand.

And prepare to be both amazed and creeped out with spokeo at the same time

Jeremy Beyda

You bring up a good post (the Blodget post) and a good, timely question; should the Wall Street Journal lower it’s wall’s?

I have seen the numbers and read the commentary and still have not yet formulated an opinion to go to market with, but my gut tells me opening up the Journal is the way to go. WSJ has been one of the few online content providers that has been able to sustain a paid model, but is it really sustainable in the long run?

As for spokeo, I have not yet tried it, but you can bet I will!

Adam

There has been a lot of discussion surrounding the WSJ online and why it will take some time for it to drop its subscription fee. Specifically, Henry Blodget on SAI talked about how much revenue WSJ currently makes from its subscription fees and how they would have to offset that. His discussion can be found here http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/01/guess-what-wsj-may-not-go.html (sorry dont know how to hyperlink in a reply). I tend to fall on the side of being ok to pay for something like the WSJ so long as it provides real value that I cant find anywhere else. If dropping hte subscription results in lower quality content (including less intelligent comments) then i would rather pay.

As for privacy – there is one service that I use that totally freaks me out. Have you tried spokeo.com? I upload my contacts and it crawls the web to see what kind of activity they are partaking in. Unlike friendfeed, you dont ask permission from your friends, it just happens. Before i was officially following you on twitter, for example, spokeo was giving me your twitter updates. Thats kinda weird as I imagine you had no idea. Another really freaky example is the Amazon wish list. If someone in my contact list adds something to the amazon wish list and hasnt opted for wish list privacy….lets just say it was interesting to see that a girl i know from law school put a rather risque book in her wish list. Considering I havent spoken with her in 5 years, I bet she wouldnt be too happy that I have this info.

I think both the financial viability of open and the privacy concerns surrounding open will play themselves out rather rapidly. The privacy issue especially will snowball as people realize how public their lives have become. Someone once said that everything should be in moderation – does that include openness?

Jeremy Beyda

You raise some good questions!

At what point does open hinder privacy?
How do we monetize open?

I would love to hear what people think

While being open is the future, the real question is how open you want to be. In the case of cell phones, the networks are open but the phones themselves are not. A better example would be, say, Windows vs. Ubuntu. Windows is a very closed but has a great amount of open source software, Ubuntu is very open but still runs on a platform that is more complex than any Windows platform created. Everyone also runs Windows, Ubuntu on the other hand is a different story.

There’s also the question of privacy in a completely open, online, social world. While, being open is great, yes, Facebook’s app’s (say Beacon) attached to Google’s open social network can lead to a lot of leaked personal information.

Now, being more open does provide additional opportunities, primarily in advertising, the reason they the New York Times took down its wall. Open systems are great, but there still has to be money to be made.

- Nexeus Fatale