Google - The Age of the PlatformThe Age of the Platform

Platforms and Guarantees

In How to Make Your Big Idea Really Happen, John Hagel III and John Seely Brown write about the need to build platforms, critical mass, ensure mutual benefit, etc. From the piece:

Thanks to the ubiquity of online communities, the virtual ties we form today are often as strong as those we create in-person. World

Turns out that the recent Mac malware attack didn't just affect Mac users. (Is anything isolated these days?) Some hackers were effectively robbing Google of advertising dollars by redirecting clicks from infected Mac OS X machines and stealing the ad revenue. Google will survive but the premise here is interesting. Less-than-scrupulous folks can exploit the space between platforms. Read More

The Inherent Tension Between Management and Innovation

Innovation means failure. Always has. Management at the vast majority of large, conservative companies serve to minimize failure. Companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have built great platforms because their leaders understand that, to innovate, you have to embrace intelligent risk and uncertainty. And I'm hardly the only one to notice. Ron Ashkenas writes about the difficulty that Read More

The Short(er) Long Term

Eric Jackson on Forbes writes about some pretty uncanny ways in which Google resembles Microsoft circa 1999. To me, this is kind of like comparing the assassinations of Presidents Kennedy and Lincoln. Eerie similarities, but I don't believe that the Google brass is nearly as complacent as Microsoft in 1999. Remember, Apple was all but dead then and Read More

The Problem with Ubiquity

Will Wheaton is angry about a more Plus-centric Google. He's used to using Google in a certain way, a way free from near-constant suggestions about upgrades and +1's. People hate change and, for platform companies, it’s a fine line between evolution/progress and annoying your user base. You want to adapt and innovate without being intrusive. It’s much Read More

Innovation and the Case for the Platform

Bill Lee in a recent HBR article on customer platforms essentially makes the case for the platform. He writes:

The ability to make it easy for customers to alter products to better meet their needs is not confined to technology firms. Mid-tech, low-tech and no-tech firms have been doing the same thing for a

Microsoft, Android, and Frenemies

Microsoft just signed a deal in which it will effectively make money off of Android. From the Mashable piece:

It may seem strange that Microsoft is licensing Android and Chrome patents when both of those products are managed by Google. But Microsoft holds many patents that relate directly to technologies used in the Android operating

The End of Google Plus?

Is it the beginning of the end of Google Plus? Adam Metz seems to think so. Whether Google+ surpasses Facebook or Twitter to me is besides the point. Google needed a viable social plank in its platform. I don't expect Google to be identified with Plus any more than I expect Amazon to be primarily known Read More

Reflections on the Six-Month Anniversary of the Book

I'm sitting in my backyard yesterday in quite the pensive mood. I'm thinking about the last six months, not coincidentally the amount of time since the book has been released. Without a doubt, there have been personal highs and lows. If there's been one thing that has sustained me through the latter, it's this: I'm right. The Age of Read More

Stalin and the Platform Wars

You've heard the phrase before: The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Variations of the quote have been attributed to people for centuries and the bromide continues to resonate today, including Joseph Stalin. Think about what Facebook's decision to spend more than $500 million buying patents that Microsoft just purchased days ago. While I have no insider Read More