One of them is, for example, intranet blogs. Not particularly sexy to the Web 2.0 or New Journalism worlds, but it’s a good business and I think useful to help businesses do that. So, we have MT Enterprise, and that basically doesn’t compete with anything, either from us or from anybody else. Similarly, TypePad is (IMO) the most powerful hosted blog service, and I think even the many web hosts that use MT for their blog services would concede that.

But for more social blogs, and for social networks, I think you’re absolutely right. All of LiveJournal and most parts of Vox are open source; So as a company overall, I think we’re on board with the sentiment you’re describing. The truth is, though, that installable blogging tools really don’t compete with socially-networked hosted services.

(On a sidenote, my defensiveness and general impoliteness in that thread was lame, and I’m sorry for it. I’d hate to think people would judge our entire company by that any more than they’d judge an entire organization by one person’s having a bad day.)

Is youtube a platform or a media property?

A platform.

Is flickr a platform or a media property?

A platform.

Is feedburner a platform or a media property?

A platform.

Here’s the difference between a platform and a media property: a media property has an editorial vision. A platform does not.

Or to put it another way: YouTube is a platform. LonelyGirl15 is a media property that used the YouTube platform for distribution.

Paul, I think you’re misunderstanding. Six Apart has created both Typepad - a service - and Movable Type - a product, which powers their service. That creates conflict: if 6A do too good of a job on MT, other people can take MT and use it to create a service which competes directly with Typepad and thus they cede their competitive advantage. (That’s assuming Typepad has one at the moment.) Companies don’t mind putting out competing products, because whichever one the consumer buys, they get the money. What they don’t want to do is put out a product which undermines a service they also provide, particularly not a web service, given the fickleness of us users.

For instance, you don’t see a Camaro Z-28 being sold at a Chevy dealership a quarter mile from a Pontiac dealership offering the Firebird.

Nor do you see Procter & Gamble supplying Oxydol to supermarkets that they market Tide to.

You don’t find Microsoft offering word processors in both MS Works and in MS Office.

And you never find a Starbucks located across the street from a Starbucks.