The Platform Of The Future
By timm. Filed in Geek |
Platforms
Platforms. Really beautiful mechanisms. We can create a little place out of nothing where other people can come in and create their own little place for other people to do things.
I’d call Facebook a service for the most part – although they have a platform. It’s called Facebook Platform. No surprise there.
Developers can leverage Facebook – as well as the end user’s friends, to create their own app that will soon take on a life of its own, provided it’s interesting enough.
Twitter’s platform is basically the same.
Amazon. Platform exists. All over the place. Amazon is a platform, and their whole infrastructure is built on it. They use their own platform.
Microsoft IS (for the most part) a platform. They use their own platform in their spare time. Microsoft Office is both a product and another bi-product of their platform. They USE their own platform.
So for all the Microsoft bashing that I’ll probably do in the future on this site – they were one of the first, and certainly the earliest successful adapter of the platform idea. Arguably the most successful.
A business perspective
Why would you build a platform as opposed to an app to build your business? For one, if you can generate enough interest you’ve “hired” every developer who has any interest to write free software for you – increasing your value to your end users. Increasing your page views, increasing your interaction, increasing your brand.
Your original product suddenly has every direction in the world all at the same time – within whatever boundaries your platform imposes, anyway.
Soon, a decent chunk of your success is heightened by the fact that you can let other people do the work for you – come up with the ideas, and they get to be fully responsible for the success or failure of those ideas – and if they’re good ideas, you benefit as well. If they’re bad ideas, well, they just melt away into the past.
Why wouldn’t you want a platform for your business?
Open Source VS Platforms.
We’ve all heard why open source can be good for your business – although most execs would rather stab a pencil in their eye than consider releasing their prized software to an open source community. That’s a different topic, but lets look at the similarities and differences.
With open source, your platform is C++ or php or Rails, or Python. It’s really not that different from that perspective.
When you allow something to go open source, you’re finding almost the same “instant” team of developers that you’d find if you released a killer platform. The main difference in my opinion is that your geeks who are looking for a good open source project to work on are probably a bit more advanced than your average platform developer.
They’re also going to be more discerning. An open source project is by nature more specific than a platform. You have to find developers that care about whatever it is that your end product is or does.
Not the case with a platform. A platform probably has a very loose set of guidelines. It is what the developer decides it is. It does what the developer wants it to.
This opens the door for a multitude of ideas, and therefore a significantly larger number of interested developers.
A platform doesn’t really require the level of understanding and/or the time that an open source project might. This allows the developer to get started faster and implement with greater ease. Those ideas flow alot more freely if there isn’t a steep learning curve.
The fact is, the main similarity between open source and a platform is that you are leveraging free labor from interested developers. Still, it’s interesting to make the comparison.
There is also a significant cultural difference between open source and platforms. We can’t get into that here, but it is one of the major differences
So, integration is a pain
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. You are thinking about your business and wondering how in the heck you could even implement a platform if you wanted to. What benefit would it bring your business?
Are you a shopping cart? Are you a publisher?
Those two are toughies when it comes to platforms. Amazon did it with a shopping cart, but Amazon is – well, Amazon. They are huge. It doesn’t matter what they do, there are a ton of people out there who are waiting for Amazon to stick their finger out so they can pull it.
Amazon is an example of a company that had sheer size on their side.
A whole bunch of questions
What if you’re a publisher? Can you do something with your in house content? Can you implement a platform that will allow you to get more content without a Panda stomping on your head?
So what are your options?
I think it’s really important to know your customer base (as with any business decision) before you will know if a platform would help you in the least.
What are your customers doing? Are a large enough chunk of your customers (readers, viewers, whatever) doing something that leads you to think that a developer could come up with something to enhance their experience? 10 developers? 100 developers?
Would 100 developers even notice if you released a platform tomorrow?
Do you have to be a social network or a service to have a successful platform?
Things a successful platform must have (be built around)
And I mean at least one of these things.
- A huge user base. Engaged and interested in a common topic. There’s power in numbers.
- A big database full of interesting or useful data that developers can shape into useful products. Or, a knowledge base, a huge chunk of articles – whatever. Publishers, here is where you might fit in.
- A service or piece of software that does something useful on its own. There is a good chance that this is just another way of looking at #2.
Things EVERY platform must have
Don’t even bother if you can’t fill all of these requirements. Here is where the marriage comes in:
- A benefit for the developer. It doesn’t have to be monetary.
- A benefit for the platform stakeholder. Page-views, cash-flow, new prospects, user engagement, at the very least, branding. Don’t do something because its a buzz word or everyone else is doing it. Clearly define your benefit before you even take the first step.
- A customer that will recognize the value in the platform – or at least any one of its products.
- An inviting system that will notify/educate the customer/end user on all the products that come out of the platform.
Let’s look at some examples.
Facebook.
From the first list, Facebook has #1, #2, #3. From the second list it has #1, #2 , #3, and #4. A perfect 7 out of 7. Facebook benefits from the pageviews, ad potential, branding, etc. The Facebook is written in such a way that the developer’s benefit is limited only by his imagination. The social factor just amplifies this into a fierce force. Have you heard of Farmville or Mafia Wars? Yeah, you have.
Microsoft.
From the first list Microsoft has #1, and #3. From the second list, they have #1, #2, #3, and arguably #4 – but nothing formal, so we’ll give them a 5 out of 7. Microsoft benefits from the developer purchasing their dev software, and the end user is basically required to have a fairly recent version of Windows. Microsoft’s brand shoots through the roof, and their sales follow. Genius. All Microsoft did was make the platform (Windows) available to the end user and the tools available to the developer. The ultimate middle man is one that isn’t a useless step.
Apple’s Ipod, Iphone, Ipad App Store
From the first list, they leverage #1 and #3. From the second list, #1, #2, #3, #4. 6 out of 7. The main difference between Apple and Microsoft here is the App Store that Apple offers.
Other Platforms
What other platforms can you think of? How do they compare?
Your Platform
Is it becoming any easier to determine if your business can support a platform? What would your score be out of 7? If you’re less than a 4 or 5, you’d better think a little more.
The Platform Of The Future
What would the platform of the future be? We know platforms don’t have to be limited to a particular device (web platforms for instance). We also know that a particular platform can be used by more than one business entity. Will there ever be a platform that is device-less, ownerless, completely portable, and integratable with everything and anything?