Platform = (Programmable + Customizable) Systems / Marc Andreesen

Marc Andreessen (Google), co-founder of Mosaic + Netscape + Ning, attempts to give a definition to "Internet platform" in his blog post: The three kinds of platforms you need on the Internet. Key points:

• A "platform" is a system that can be programmed and therefore customized by outside developers
• If you can program it, then it's a platform. If you can't, then it's not.
• There are three levels of Internet platforms:
  1. Access API: developer's application code lives outside the platform, and call into the platform via a web services API to draw on data and services.
     • Examples: Flickr, Del.icio.us, eBay, etc.
     • Problems: The entire burden of building and running the application itself is left entirely to the developer. Requires very high technical expertise and financial resources.
  2. Plug-In API: apps run elsewhere, but inject functionality into the platform via a plug-in API.
     • Examples: Photoshop, Firefox, Facebook.
     • Problems: The entire burden of building and running the application itself is left entirely to the developer. Technical + financial burdens on developers can rapidly become overwhelming.
  3. Runtime Environment: applications run inside the platform itself.
     • Examples: Ning, Salesforce.com, Amazon, Second Life, Akamai
     
     

As with Cliff notes, you don't actually learn anything from reading the gists, so go read the full article on blog.pmarca.com (indexed by SML Search)

SML Thank You

I would like to thank David Bausola (Del.icio.us / Google / LinkedIn) for sending this wonderful article to me via Del.icio.us! (David Bausola / SML Thank You)

SML Copyright Notice

Copyright 2007 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

From closed to open

If Web 1.0 is about information authoring, then Web 2.0 is about information sharing (1).

This change is evidential when we look at the climate of information representation: from FAQs to forum discussion, from personal homepages to personal blogging, from closed-development to open-source movement, from categorizing to tagging, from trees to wikis.

In other words, from closed to open.

Being open is a good thing. A prime example is opensource development. You initiate an idea and concept, and a whole world of developers is available to improve and improvise on it (2). IBM reaps the benefits of open-developing their Eclipse platform as a successor to their VisualAge family of products.

In the world of knowledge, Wikipedia became statistically evaluated to be as accurate as Encyclopedia Brittanica, eclipsing Brittanica’s once dominant sovereign in the world of knowledge (3).

In the world of business, corporations open up their communication channels and invite the whole world for discourse. Blogs like the Google Blog, Adobe blog and Microsoft’s Channel 9 created two-way communication channels, and thus benefits, with the users. Web users learn the insider tips on different companies’ products and services, and the companies in turn gain tremendous amount of user feedback on their betaware with very little upfront investment.

Interactive agencies see blogging as a free PR device to influence the industry. Organic has Three Minds, Frog Design has the Frog Blog. I find myself reading these quite a bit to learn where the industry is going and how different companies are utilizing upcoming technology to do amazing things.

In turn, I noted that while I took note of Razorfish in the early days (~1997) via the RSub–the Razorfish lab that sells company merchandise and all kinds of ‘experimental’ ideas that their employees create–it appears that the same business model of social marketing has now transformed to corporate blogging.

References / Citations

1. Inspired via discourse with Tom Nicholson.
2. Via discourse with Adam S. Kirschner.
3. CNet | Study: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica by Daniel Terdiman, 2005-12-15