High Definition Mistakes

I'm going to refrain from a cute headline using "Digg" in some trite way.

In any case, if you're not up on the story of Digg and the HD-DVD stuff, you can find that in a bunch of other places. But here is just a little of my own analysis.

First, over on the BusinessWeek Tech blog Rob Hof tries to argue that this is a test of Web 2.0. He's wrong (though, he is correct that it's a test of Digg). Even if Digg gets sued out of existence something else will crop up in its place and that's the true power of Web 2.0. A number of sites are already trying to out-Digg Digg, so that is almost guaranteed. Over on ZDNet, Steve O'Hear tries to make the argument that Digg messed this one up big-time from a PR perspective, suggesting that the executives (Read: Kevin Rose) should have just stated the reason why the information was pulled down and that would have not lead to much. He's partially right.

Meanwhile, back on BusinessWeek.com, Cliff Edwards points out that the AACS licensing body messed up by sending around notices "asking" that information be pulled down. They did, in effect, draw more attention to something they could have let die. They're not the only group that does this.

In any case, the real lesson here is that DRM encryption is going to be an arms race and those playing in the sandbox better get used to it. Hackers WILL try to find a way to break just about everything that comes up and then they WILL spread the word.

After all, sharing and collaborating on information is what Web 2.0 is all about.