Last year around this time I wrote a column looking at walled gardens like AOL or in the modern era, Facebook. You can find a decent explanation of walled gardens on wikipedia. Basically it is an all inclusive service that is enclosed. An easy example is Xbox Live. You can watch movies, chat, voice chat, buy games, play games, listen to music, etc and so forth, but everything you do is pretty much within the confines of the Xbox Live service. There’s not much interconnection with other services outside of what Microsoft offers. There’s limited connectivity with Facebook and Twitter, but that’s really about it.
Last year around this time there were some claiming that walled garden services. like say. the closed Apple app platform were going to bring down the Net and were violations of Network Neutrality (whatever that phrase happens to mean today), and that services like these needed to be opened up (also a nonsensical idea due to the fact that “open” means different things to different people).
Today I found an interesting chart that was ironically shared on the Facebook platform itself by a previous professor of mine whom I have to credit with a good deal of my education on technology law that was outside of my scope.
So here’s my previous column: Facing the Truth, We All Love Walled Gardens - for your comparison and contrast to the chart (Click the image twice and it will blow up really big and clear!):
