We Should Stop Using The Word “War” To Describe Video Competition

Most folks don't know this about me, but I spent six years in the military. I was never deployed to a war zone and my six years of service just happened to be right after the first gulf war ended and before the second one took place. While you are trained for war in the military, I am one of the lucky ones who didn't have to actually go into combat.

That said, I have some personal experience in what members of the military agree to when they take their oath agreeing that one day, they may in fact be called on to go to combat in a war zone. As I mentioned once before in a blog post when talking about CDN pricing, members of the media should not be using the word "war" to describe business competition amongst vendors. There is no "pricing war". There is no "format war". John Dowdell at Adobe makes a great point about this topic in his blog post today saying that, "it’s quite unsettling to see how techblogs go on about the “war” and “blood feud” and other speech which is meant to incite, and earn more ad revenue."

Vendors are in competition with one another and sometimes that competition is fierce. But these are companies competing for business, revenue and market share and they are not at "war" with one another. Yes, it can get personal at times, but it's only business, that's all. John's blog post today should be a reminder to all of us in the media that describing business competition amongst two vendors as "war" is a disservice to those who are in the military and who know what the true meaning of war really is.

Updated: For those who have asked and others who might be wondering, the flag is not displayed backwards in my post. That is how the flag is worn on the right shoulder of the military uniform, which is what I took a picture of. You can learn more about that here.