After Om Malik blogged Tuesday about the possibility that Flickr had missed a chance at an egress lined with gold, I asked Flickr CEO Stewart Butterfield to comment. Referring to a Business 2.0 piece in which Michael Copeland wrote that Google and Yahoo want to buy Flickr outright, while VCs are flooding the husband-and-wife management team with offers, Om wondered:

"...Given the aggression with which Google has moved with Picasa, and their track record of replicating-and-improving on other people's ideas, you think maybe Flickr missed an opportunity to cash out?"

Here's what Stewart had to say:

"Given our growth, the technologies cooking in the lab, and that we're still completing the feature set and infrastructure build out for version 1.0, I'm not worried about the future.
I don't think Google can or would want to simply replicate anything. They are pretty obsessive about the details -- Gmail took two years in development -- and they like to do things their own way. As their evolution from search engine to ad network + portal continues I think they become easier to compete with in areas outside their core."

It's worth noting that Om received a flood of Flickr love in response to his post, which tell's you something about the value of building brand from the ground up.

LINKS

Om Malik on Broadband --- A Fading Flickr?

Why It's Pouring VC Cash

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