Another Curse of LOOSE wire

By | March 13, 2006

Apologies for the tardiness here, but another case of the Blessing of Loose Wire, as Writely, a web-app editing application I liked and have written abouti, s acquired by Google. So much so, I’m beginning to think of my, and others’ praise, as a curse. Can this be good for the evolution of software?

Yes, apparently. According to the Writely Blog: there are good reasons why this is a good thing (with my sarcastic comments in italics):

Here are our “top 10” reasons why being part of Google is fantastic for Writely and the Writely team:
10. Writely is like a caterpillar that we hope to make into a beautiful butterfly at Google! or a bug left forgotten in a bottom drawer…
9. We love Google’s philosophy and values — especially “Focus on the user.”  who doesn’t? Focus on the user, I mean?
8. We’re as passionate as Google is about respecting users’ privacy. Who isn’t?
7. Many of our users are already Google fans using other Google services. Who doesn’t?
6. Being at Google will help us do more great things faster. Speed isn’t everything.
5. Some people didn’t feel comfortable trusting a tiny startup with their documents…and we’re no longer a tiny startup. Some people trust smaller startups than big fellas with lots of cross-cutting agendas.
4. We like lava lamps and they’re pretty much standard decor at Google. Hey, I’ll give you mine.
3. Three words: Free Googleplex lunches šŸ˜‰ Much overrated. What’s wrong with a Big Mac?
2. As fun as it’s been to launch a popular, global, 24×7 Web service, it’ll be nice to take a vacation once in a while! Fair enough. Let’s go to Bali.
…and the number one reason???
1. We’ll be able to bring Writely to not just thousands but millions of users — the more, the merrier šŸ™‚ Good luck with that. You’ve done great so far. 

I’m ambivalent about these guys getting snapped up. This is the umpteenth startup I love that’s gotten swallowed up. I don’t begrudge the guys their windfall, and I don’t question their continued committment. But we end users have learned to be a bit suspicious of anything big, and I guess we kinda love to root for the little guy. It’s hard to love the little guy when he emerges from under the trenchcoat of some big bruiser, however disarming the smile on his face. 

The little guy is gone. Long live the next little guy to come along.

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