An interesting perspective to say the least. Anyone care to weigh in on this?

They're like verizon--they take other people's innovations, test, repackage and launch.

problem is, its hard for teh people with ideas to get enough exposure to take off, if I had a product, it would make sense to sell it to yahoo, for sure it would get usage time. On the other hand, they would prolly not have the same vision i would for the product.

Imitation will only get you so far. You need to throw in some innovation every once in awhile. Also, I would rather have a team have a few products and keep making improvements while gaining market share than a bunch of imitations that are so-so. It's kind of like explaining tech stuff to my parents. If I go all crazy and throw a bunch of stuff at them they get turned off and tune me out. If I pick a certain product and focus on it they are more interested.

you have no idea how often i hear from people: won't yahoo and google just copy clipmarks? such is life these days on the web.

They definitely imitate the individual services of others, however Yahoo! is in a remarkable position to innovate in the INTEGRATION of those services. With an audience the size of theirs, innovation on that level could be powerful enough to make up for a culture of product imitation.

I agree adamc. If you are going to imitate at least follow through and make the product better(innovate).