You know web services are a funny thing, people are building applications and data feeds and they all have their own motivations for doing so, some are distributing content they want to disseminate because it draws people to their other products, some are doing it for advertising dollars.
Either way, we are building mashups that while we don't expect them to last as long as Kongo Gumi (www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/apr2007/sb20070416_589621.htm) we do expect them to be around for a while.
So what happens when someone turns the data flow off?
http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/?p=350
The basics of the story between Amazon and Statsaholic are this, Amazon set up a data feed, Statsaholic took that data feed and did something so cool to it that people would go to view the data there rather than Amazon.
Amazon get pissed and start pushing the small 'upstart' around, first kicking it off the original domain and then starting to block it's feed via their servers IP address (lol- the thing about data feeds it's an all or nothing - Statsaholic asked other people to provide access from their servers and the whole web 2.0 community rallied behind the underdog...funny thing that).
The old adage "it's not your grandfathers axe" really rings true about web services, it's not your grandfathers internet anymore.
If you want to make a commercial decision to open up your api's and make them accessible to people then that's your choice. We wont be spoon fed marketing pr bites in nice easy to digest pieces the way you want.....we'll tear chunks out of your data, mash them around and create pure art. If you are smart you stay on the cutting edge and adopt the very best for yourself making yourself stronger....and the circle will begin again - if you're dumb you'll do it with a subpoena.
Amazon....in or out, it's your choice but make up your mind - your EC2 and S3 products were just so fantastic it blew me away last year but what you are doing to Statsaholic is just childish.
Cheers,
Dean
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