Hyped New Platforms: Explaining the Difference Between One and the Other
Platforms here, platforms there - everyone's launching a platform it seems. Today's newest platforms, a content storage platform from Box.net and a content publishing platform from social network Bebo, are just the latest. Facebook, OpenSocial, Android - who can tell them all apart?
What is a platform? It's a technical welcome mat that allows developers from outside of a company tie their software to the software offering the platform. How's that for an explanation? Feel free to share your one-line explanation, too.
Each of the platforms above has a flavor and in order to clarify all the talk about platforms, I decided to make a chart. These are the things I look at when trying to understand where a new platform lies in the landscape. All of this is so new that it's hard to know how to compare them for sure, but I think most of the following is from a user's perspective. It's also mostly prediction as almost none of these platforms are live yet. These comparison charts are always a challenge, and they're usually pretty subjective - but please let me know of any details I've gotten wrong and I'll correct any mistakes.
OpenSocial
The Google-lead but open-standards based initiative could be huge, or it could just be for cross-site widget publishing. It's all about the applications, it appears so far. It is open to any participant and many companies are announcing that are building apps that leverage OpenSocial to travel freely from one social networking site to the next.
Developers will build apps that can be published on any OpenSocial supporting site, like MySpace, LinkedIn or Bebo. For more analysis see our post on concerns about OpenSocial. For a more indepth introduction, see Jeremiah Owyang's post Explaining OpenSocial to Your Executives.
The original platform, at least as far as this wave in concerned. It's a walled garden application-wise, those apps aren't going anywhere but Facebook. Anyone can create a Facebook app, they can pull content in from offsite but cannot publish offsite and it's not really about cross site identity, either. The Facebook app platform is pretty limited, really, and those who treated its arrival like a divine act are liable to feel silly shortly.
Android
Google's open mobile OS was just unveiled to the developers of the world and probably only belongs on this list because it's a platform that's open to anyone. Otherwise it's like apples and oranges - hard to compare with the other platforms here.
Box.net
Online storage startup Box.net released today some limited access to their new platform, OpenBox. OpenBox will in time let any application access your media content stored at Box.net. It's not as ambitious in scope as the other platform plays, but it might prove to be one of the most utilitarian. This platform makes me think of an Amazon web service, but direct to consumers. For more in-depth coverage of today's announcement from Box.net see Josh Lowensohn's post on the platform.
Bebo
Bebo is big in the UK and New Zealand but readers from elsewhere may not think much of it. None the less, its userbase is substantial (40 million) and today Bebo announced a platform of its own. It's called Open Media but it doesn't appear terribly open. It looks like a white listing of professionally produced, big media content. While it won't get nearly as much hype as some of the other platforms, and perhaps is only loosely deserving of the platform title - it's probably going to be another very smart move for this growing social network. If you've got users and you're making money, who needs geek hype?
MySpace
Note that MySpace isn't included here, but they appear determined to continue developing their own platform in addition to participating in OpenSocial. It will be interesting to see if they do anything that pushes the envelope.
Conclusion
I hope that this brief comparison will prove helpful in comparing these darned platforms. They are popping up like weeds, so I'm sure this list will seem woefully short by the end of the week.
Platforms are good, standards are better - data portability is some peoples' ideal, others see superior service even in walled gardens as the ultimate goal. There's every reason to believe that more platforms are on the way, though.
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Just curious as to why you even mention Android in this article? Just like you said, "apples to oranges".
Bryanl - it's a new platform that people are discussing and developing for, and it's one that is open to all, unlike some of the others. That was my thinking :)
Great run down, loved the chart you put together. I felt like I was browsing the circuit city compare thing! :) Nicely done!
Rex
Hey Marshall-
I think you should add a row and just call is "RSS". It is the ultimate "platform":
1) It is open to anyone
2) There is a ton of available open source to build on top of RSS.
3) It is cross-platform.
4) It supports sydication of most media types.
We've been providing RSS feeds for pretty much everything on our site for some time. We even offer JSON feeds in our playlists for those more advanced with AJAX. We've seen people put this feeds into players, feed readers, built widgets on top of them, even build a Second Life media kiosk using our feeds!
So, I agree: standards are much better than platforms.
Frank
I like your thinking, Frank. Hope things are well over there at Mefeedia.
Going great. Thanks. I didn't realize there was a R/W Talk. I added it to our Tech news channel:
http://www.mefeedia.com/channels/technology-news/
This channel is available to developers using the Mefeedia Platform. Just click on the little orange button on that page. :)
For me, success will be the 'entire web' as a platform. This could first start with the 'widgetizing' of profiles and identity rather than creating widgets on various platforms.
Great analysis, I would consider adding SalesForce, which has been doing interesting stuff on their web-based platform.
Of course, one could add Microsoft, Apple, and others to the fray.
There are a lot of 'N's in that Table. It goes to show how far we have to go.
Starting the ball rolling by putting all the existing open standards in context as a 'stack' - www.dataportability.org
I think to qualify some of these "platforms" you need another column to indicate how "deep" the integration is. Platform can be something as simple as "RSS" to the level of richness of Facebook. Hence, although everyone is google-eyed about OpenSocial, the level of integration into participating "containers" are still unclear. And, I'm not sure any high-level abstracted "platform" like OpenSocial can address every unique functionality of every site - it can, at best, address the common denominators/functions of those sites.
I personally love opensocial! Would love to be a part of it!
Good post Marshall.
As Jermiah said, internet is the platform and the facebooks and myspaces of the world are just components of the platform.
I think you might need to clarify this statement: "Anyone can create a Facebook app, they can pull content in from offsite but cannot publish offsite..."
Facebook allows a lot more "offsite" operation than I think people realize. Third-party web sites can access Facebook via its API and operate outside of Facebook. (This technically isn't the "platform," but for all pratical purposes it is.) Desktop applications can also interact with Facebook. The key is that while a user can save data locally, an application can't save much data or forward it to other applications.
At least, that's my understanding of the situation.
Ok, so the move to cross platform integration will be the next big thing, excellent identification.
Facebook and the originator of this fad, MySpace presently are not part of this, and likely, they will fade out because of this shift. I say that because they have built models that are dependent on the user base staying with them for the purpose of showing advertisers large amount of continual users. With the amount of money already invested into both platforms and the issue with porting what technically can be called a legacy system, it seems unlikely that either platform can/or will be able to make the jump.
Before either could actually make the technological and philosophical jump, likely, there will already be a community of sites available that are winning users. Cross-platform user sharing will require a totally different business model, or at least one with far reduced earning potential, meaning substantially reduced investor expectations.
In essence, I like the sounds of this, but I still have to wonder, tracking tracking tracking. How much of our lives do we wanted tracked? With the movement from one social network to the next being possible, there will be (OpenSocial?) a central node/switch that handles all the traffic, and from that, what data/marketing points etc will be created.
I understand it's happening and that I personally cannot persuade the users of the internet to collectively care about their privacy; it is just a point for conversation.