What About Open Standards?
If there’s anything that the Internet age has taught us, it’s that open systems and standards almost always win out over closed systems.
The open, freewheeling web has beaten AOL. MP3, a fairly open standard, is the most popular digital music format. Open source and free software register more gains every day.
It only makes sense. After all, closed systems, especially online, make about as much sense in most cases as closed phone networks. Imagine if every phone carrier had its own network, incompatible with its competitors or only compatible when licensing deals were signed. Could you imagine not being able to call your friends because they use T-Mobile phones, while you have AT&T?
But that’s what some wireless digital picture frame makers are doing when it comes to wireless content.
The attraction of closed systems is clear: it’s easier to make money using them. Open systems give users complete choice and don’t tie them to a single product. This makes customer churn a greater threat and revenues less assured.
As a result, it’s natural that some frame makers would be looking at closed systems for additional revenues. A number have created proprietary systems for delivering content and photos to frames. Depending on the company, users are either required or invited to subscribe to these systems to fully use the wireless features of their frames.
And though these closed systems may be good for a company’s business in the short term, I doubt they’re sustainable in the long term. Open standards are going to win and, when it comes to wireless frame content, RSS will probably be leading the charge.
These closed systems fragment the market for things like content on digital frames because no single system is likely to get big enough to really leverage economies of scale when it comes to negotiating content deals or harnessing the power of the crowd.
The systems that will succeed will be open, interoperable systems. A content-delivery system that works with every frame will have more benefit to users and manufacturers.
When an open system is used by customers with all kinds of frames, negotiations for better deals for high-value, quality content become easier. That system can offer great sharing and collaboration features. It can foster innovations that we haven’t even envisioned today.
The wireless digital picture frame space is probably a little too young right now for a manufacturer to prosper simply on the basis on openness. There are other factors — price, distribution, marketing — that are equally big factors in the near term. But we’re probably not far off from the day when an unknown player enters the market — and succeeds wildly — by embracing open systems and standards.
