Closed vs Open Systems – Are you still closeted?

What is the value of an open system vs a closed system?  Should you keep all your content on your web site or syndicate it out?  According to Allen Stern in Just How Much is the Conversation Worth keeping everyone on your site could be worth an additional $100,000 per year.  Robert Scoble weighs in with the mention of his discussion with an "A list" blogger who wants all his comments exclusively on his site. 

Remember Wang?  Most people don’t. 

Wang literally "owned" the word processing marketplace in the early to mid 1980’s but they kept all their technology to themselves, so did Apple and Macs; they never grew above a few percentage points in market share until they added the ability to run the Windows operating system on them. 

Bottom line is you need a team to succeed.  Its very hard to do it all by yourself.  If you are planning on selling your business in the next 12 months keep everything to yourself and squeeze.

Just hope your competitors don’t far surpass you while you’re squeezing.