Observations – The Age of the Platform

The Future of Facebook

In the last 18 months, I've thought more and more about the Gang of Four and The Age of the Platform. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are clearly dominant but I'm starting to see cracks in Facebook. The other companies were started as businesses and we're used to paying them. Not so with Zuck's baby. Turning users into customers isn't easy, nor is increasing the number of ads they see.

The Problem, Dear Marissa, Lies Not Within Yahoo!

Marissa Mayer knew what she was getting into. She's getting big bucks to turn around the once-mighty Yahoo!

From my standpoint, the company's problem is very simple.

Yahoo! has not really embraced platform thinking. Unlike Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and scores of others, Yahoo! doesn't really encourage external innovation. Until the company does, I'm not betting on a turnaround. In other words, the problem isn't inside Yahoo! It's outside–and no internal

Is Facebook Blowing It?

Want to share something on Facebook with your followers?

Well, it may start to cost you, at least according to an interesting piece on WallBlog. From the article:

High profile Facebook users are growing increasingly frustrated at what they see as the social network gaming the system in order to encourage people to pay to promote their content.

It kind of reminds me of the effect of Google algorithm changes on

Relevance

On Forbes recently, Darcy Travlos wrote an interesting piece entitled Importance of Being a Platform (Apple, LinkedIn, Amazon, eBay, Google, Facebook).

It's gratifying to see major publications run pieces on the central premise of your book nearly 18 months after it was published. It's particularly hard staying ahead of the technology/business curve these days, what with nearly constant change taking place. With the exception of Groupon (covered in the chapter

Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone

From a recent ComputerWorld piece:

Microsoft yesterday confirmed that a retail copy of Office 2013 is permanently tied to the first PC on which it's installed, preventing customers from deleting the suite from one machine they own and installing it on another.

The move is a change from past Office end-user licensing agreements (EULAs), experts said, and is another way Microsoft is pushing customers, especially consumers, to opt

If All Else Fails, Smear

Microsoft is back at it with its Google smear campaign. Google employees are reading individual emails to serve up better ads.

Or so Ballmer et. al would have you believe.

Bullocks!

To my knowledge, Google employees don't read any Gmail messages. Rather, algorithms serve up ads to support free products. This is the essence of the freemium model.

Do the math on the number of emails sent. Does Google employ a team of monkeys

On eBay and Platforms

Charlie Rose did an interesting interview with eBay CEO John Donahoe last night. Donahoe clearly understands the importance of platforms, and his honesty about missing key trends like social media is nothing if not refreshing. What's more, admitting that Skype didn't work--and explaining why--is not something I would expect from someone in his position.

In The Age of the Platform, I clearly draw a line between eBay and the rest of

The Decline of the US Postal Service

Fairly soon, the U.S. Postal Service will cease delivering mail on Saturdays. It's expected that the move, "beginning in August, would mean a cost saving of about $2 billion annually."

But that doesn't even stop the bleeding. The USPS is losing $25 million/day--an astonishing number.

Do the math. More cuts are coming, and prices of stamps and services will have to increase in order to make the hallowed institution financially solvent.

In the

Ecosystems in Action

What do you get when you mix Apple's developer ecosystem with Kickstarter? You get some amazing new innovations about which other companies can only dream.

In the Age of the Platform, outside forces can take your products and services in fascinating directions.

Or not, as RIM is discovering.

On Platforms and Whining

I wrote yesterday about Microsoft's whining about Google's paid search results.

I find it interesting that competitors of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are so vocal. For the most part, the Gang of Four just focuses on building better products and offering better services. Sure, Larry Page complains about Facebook's walled garden. Apple pulled Google's maps from iOS 6 before a highly public retreat.

Still, I don't read too much about Jeff