The Gang of Four – The Age of the Platform

The Platform Wars Continue

Larry Page will be on Charlie Rose tonight. In this trailer, Page talks about Facebook's lack of openness: Page laments Facebook's lack of openness and hopes that Facebook will "open up" its platform to the mighty search giant. My take: He can keep waiting. Facebook isn't completely open by design. You think that Facebook would be work 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

Causality

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are not successful because they're big. They're big because they're successful.

I've already had a few relatively animated discussions with intelligent folks about whether small businesses can learn anything from The Gang of Four. I say yes.

That doesn't mean that you or I can buy DoubleClick or Zappos. We can't.

But aren't