What's The Difference?

I'm like to use the phrase "Me Too, Me Also, Me Different" when I talk to companies about innovation. Today it really applies to the VoIP market. As we have seen, what one market leader does, others tend to follow.


That’s the “me too.”

Others take another approach, develop something
else but then include what the other guy has, then that lives up to my
definition of “me also.”

Skype was truly market changing-different. Vonage was and remains true to form and is about market shifting. At the time they launched they really were different. All that have followed in their wake, despite some wonderful feature enhancements still seem to follow either Skype or Vonage in what they want to be. To make my point does anyone ever remembers who the second person was to follow the Wright Brothers or Lindbergh in feats of flight?

This week with all the noise about new VoIP players entering the game, I couldn't but have a sense of Déjà Vu, as the words I first authored back in September have really seem to rung true.

First everyone was, and seems to still be playing the game of "keeping up with the Skypes." Now it seems that one new player breeds a series of copy-cat like imitations. That's how I define "me too."

Want an example of "me also?" Take the number of companies that want to horn in on Google Talk before Google even fully develops it. They are betting the farm that Google Talk takes off, and that Google doesn’t do something that kills them dead in their tracks. The same applies the Skype parasites. If eBay makes a strategic move and tightens up their licensing and developer certification as I expect them to at some point down the road, a lot of the companies that claim “we work with Skype” will be a thing of the past and guidelines and requirements, for the consumer's good will be the practice of the day.

What strikes me, is that despite all the cries of doing things different, many seem to walk the safe path and do the same as the other guys. Smart companies like AOL, MSFT and Yahoo take the potential competition off the playing field. AOL did that with ICQ and adapted their then market leading IM client AIM to be more ICQ like, without losing it’s simplicity that ICQ didn’t offer.  The money paid neutralized ICQ for the most part and AIM remains the one of the dominant IM players in the world.

In the music world, Yahoo bought Broadcast.com, MusicMatch and a few others and then created a different service based on streaming. They figured out what the market wants and over time they have built a solid offering, but how much really different is it today from Rhapsody via Real or what MSN Music offers. Sure there's the MUSE technology (DISCLAIMER-I was a Muse Shareholder) but is there a BIG difference yet?

But now look at what Steve Jobs and Apple launched iTunes with iTunes. Software. Content. Devices and interface. It was one complete package from one source. That’s me different.

Over the past few years I’ve gotten to know many of the executives leading the VOIP charge. The small companies are where the innovation is found, but it’s the big companies that choose to embrace that kind of thinking, and that can put politics aside that make the difference. VC's who invest in the difference are the ones that win and it is those people who are up for the challenge that make the difference. Those who want to be the same, collect only a paycheck.