Gen Y is Pushing Us to Open Source

Open source software, including web sites, allow customers, vendors, partners, and other third parties to add onto or customize the software that your firm offers. Think Facebook. Until this past spring, Facebook was closed source so any modifications or enhancements to their web site needed to be done by their developers. Then they moved to open source and within weeks doubled their traffic. Why? Because their millions of users became even more engaged with Facebook because Facebook became even more relevant to the needs and wants of its individual users. Call it mass customization.
Now Google and some partner sites are getting in on the act in an apparent attempt to fight back against the massive traffic moving to Facebook. As amazing as it is, Facebook, which didn’t exist just a few years ago, is now the sixth most popular web site in the world. Google and its partners are opening some of their source code to encourage third party developers to create applications that will be able to run on any web site anywhere in the world. So unlike Facebook’s strategy, which allows third parties to develop software to run on Facebook, Google’s strategy seems to be in line with the adage of a rising tide lifts all ships. The more sites that use these new apps, the more engaged we’ll all be with those sites. And because so many commercial web sites, including CollegeRecruiter.com, use Google to sell at least some of their banner advertising inventory, those rising ships will generate more traffic which will generate more ad impressions for Google to sell.
So why do I feel that Gen Y is largely responsible for this? Because they’re powerful advocates of transparency. You can see it in how they approach their careers. They’re going to post their nasties to their Facebook and MySpace pages and if you as the employer don’t like knowing that they get drunk on the weekends, too bad. That just means that you weren’t a good fit for them anyway. If Gen Y doesn’t like your site or some aspects of your site, they’re going to modify it through your open source program or they’re going to abandon you. Anyone remember Friendster? While it continues to be popular overseas, it was replaced by MySpace and now Facebook as the social networking site of choice by Gen Y. And that move was due in large part to Gen Y being able to customize their presence on MySpace and Facebook more than they could on Friendster.
Transparency. Scary but exciting. Embrace it or perish.