He notes that the service-level agreements (SLAs) for all the hosted applications are the same as those offered in the operation's traditional on-site computing environment - that is, 99.999% uptime. Google only offers 99.9% as does Amazon S3...and yes, those extra digits make a world of difference.

In addition, DISA also uses the same information assurance process (the process of managing information-related risks) for the RACE applications as it does for any apps running on the traditional, on-site computing platform. They've even cut the security accreditation process from 80 days to 40 thanks to built-in information insurance controls in RACE. 

One of the most obvious benefits of a cloud computing infrastructure, though, is the speed of deployment. The cloud platform has cut the acquisition time for a new server from 6 months to 24 hours - a change that means DISA will now be able to rapidly deploy new applications to the military in record time. "That's a must for worldwide missions with ever-changing computing requirements," says Sienkiewicz.

RACE runs using VMware on HP blade servers. Defense Department customers can choose either Microsoft Windows or Red Hat Linux and are able to configure their server with up to 4 CPUs, 8 GBs of memory and up to a terabyte of storage. Test servers are $500 per month and production servers are $1200 per month. Next year, RACE will be deployed on the DoD's classified network (SIPRNet) as well. 

Blue Spruce is a project within IBM that is only about 5 months old. Up till now it hasn't been shown publicly. Blue Spruce isn't yet complete, but conceptually it is two different things:

• Project Blue Spruce Client Toolkit
• Project Blue Spruce Co-Web Server

Here's a summary of what we know so far about the Blue Spruce platform:

- Uses the WebKit Open Source Browser Engine (in the demo we saw, Safari was the browser being used)
- Uses the following Open standards: HTML, JavaScript, CSS, (All Ajax), XMPP, H.264
- Server runs on Linux, MacOS X
- Utilized OpenAjax Metadata Specification, so it can utilize any widgets
- It's being ported to IE 6+ and Firefox

NOT a Web Browser, But is a Platform

To be clear, IBM is not developing another browser. The client part of this project is based on a set of browser-based open standards technologies. They will in time (2010 timeframe) be integrated into existing browsers such as Safari, Firefox and IE.

The grand plan for IBM, we think, is that it wants the browser to become the platform for applications - thus putting pressure on companies like Microsoft and Adobe, which still rely heavily on desktop applications (albeit these days connected to the web).

It's also worth noting that this isn't (yet) an open source project. Rod Smith described it to us as a "community-sourced" project, meaning that it's built on open standards and so others in the developer community can contribute. Smith said it "may" become an open source project in future, but it's too early to say.

Why is IBM Heading to the Browser?

We asked IBM VP of Emerging Internet Technologies, Rod Smith, why IBM is moving to browser-based applications. He replied that customers have been consistently telling them for 1-1.5 years now that they don't want to do installs anymore. Their customers want the rich experience that desktop apps have traditionally provided, but they want to have it in the browser. Collaboration and sharing data is also a trend that IBM is tapping into with Blue Spruce.

Proof of Concept Applications

At this time, Blue Spruce is in a closed beta period. IBM is creating applications for a number of customers, including Reuters and hospitals in Boston and New Zealand. They're focusing on 3 main areas right now: finance, health and "heavy industry" (defined as utilities, rail, steel, etc). As the project matures, we can expect to see IBM stepping up its application development efforts - services are after all a key part of IBM's business.

ReadWriteWeb was shown a number of 'proof of concept' demos. The functionality included Ajax-based mashups being used simultaneously by users in different locations (one in San Francisco, the other in Boston), audio and live streaming video (VGA currently, but HD is on the way) integrated with mashups, IM and feeds on the one browser page, and more rich functionality.

In other words, there were many different components (mashups, video, audio, etc.) all happening on the same browser page. Multiple users can interact with these components in real-time and see each others changes. As IBM explained it, all of the components are live and all participants can cause change that will be propagated. This will enable customers to have 'live meetings' and collaborate on applications - all within the browser.

It's unusual to see this level of functionality in a browser currently, so we think Blue Spruce could potentially be a big deal. It certainly will make big Internet companies like Microsoft, Adobe and probably even Google sit up and take notice of Big Blue.

We've written a lot of times about platforms for the Web. A web platform can be as simple as an API, like the one offered by Twitter, which allows external developers to tap into a company's data. It can be software and services, like Amazon's Web Services. It can also be a fully fledged development platform, such as iPhone SDK and Adobe AIR. Whatever the case, platforms on the Web mean allow people to build on top of another company's product, so we think it's an appropriate way to close our Top Web Products series.

• Top 10 Semantic Web Products of 2008
• Top 10 International Products of 2008
• Top 10 Consumer Web Apps of 2008
• Top 10 RSS and Syndication Products of 2008
• Top 10 Mobile Web Products of 2008
• Top 10 Enterprise Web Products of 2008
• Top 10 Real World Web Apps of 2008
• Top 10 Digital Lifestyle Products of 2008
• Top 10 Alternative Search Engines of 2008

Note: unlike some of our previous lists, we've attempted to order this one according to impact in 2008.

1. iPhone SDK

ReadWriteWeb named Apple as our Best BigCo of 2008, largely due to the iPhone platform. The iPhone truely reached a mainstream audience in 2008, when the 3G iPhone was launched to much acclaim in July. But more significant than the phone itself was the simultaneous launch of the Apple App Store. There were 552 applications available at launch and at time of writing that's risen to over 10,000 applications. So in less than 6 months, the number and variety of iPhone apps has expanded greatly. Indeed, any startup worth its salt has an iPhone version of its web app - the ultimate proof of a successful Web platform.

For many years now everybody (including us) has been predicting that the next year will be the one that the Mobile Web breaks through. 2008 was finally that year - and it's mostly thanks to the iPhone development platform.

2. OpenSocial

November was the first anniversary of Google's OpenSocial, an open API framework for social networks and websites. During 2008 OpenSocial gained a lot of traction; statistics released in November stated that OpenSocial had reached 675 M registered users at that time and there were 7,500 applications.

Most impressive is the list of organizations who signed onto OpenSocial and are actively developing apps for it. That high powered list includes MySpace, AOL, Bebo, hi5, LinkedIn, Ning, Orkut, Yahoo!. Of course still missing from OpenSocial are Facebook and Microsoft, but at the rate OpenSocial is ramping up - they may not need them.

3. Adobe AIR

As we noted in our Best BigCo 2008 post, this was a year in which Adobe's 'Rich Internet App' strategy bore some juicy fruit, with many compelling apps released that were built using AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime). AIR is a platform that makes it easy to build attractive Internet connected applications that live outside the browser. Last year we noted its potential - AIR was called 'Apollo' for much of its beta - but in February 2008 AIR was officially launched and soon we saw a lot of stunning apps emerge. For examples, check out:

• 6 Adobe AIR Apps to Check Out
• 10 Adobe AIR Apps Bloggers Will Love
• Adobe AIR Goes to Work: 6 Apps for the Corporate Desktop

We've named it our number 3 Web platform of the year, because it breathed new life into Rich Internet Apps this year.

4. Twitter API

The importance of Twitter's API to its success this year can't be overstated. The number and variety of Twitter reader clients alone is amazing, let alone the many other ways Twitter's data is being used (e.g. for e-commerce purposes). It must be said that Twitter has experienced much downtime and many technical glitches throughout the year, but even so it has continued to expand its API service. As Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said a ReadWriteTalk interview last September:

"The API has been arguably the most important, or maybe even inarguably, the most important thing we've done with Twitter. It has allowed us, first of all, to keep the service very simple and create a simple API so that developers can build on top of our infrastructure and come up with ideas that are way better than our ideas ...

So the API, which has easily 10 times more traffic than the website, has been really very important to us. We've seen some amazing work built on top of it from tiny little mobile applications like an SMS timer that just allows you to set a reminder over SMS to call your mom or something like that, to more elaborate visual recreations of Twitter like twittervision.com, which shows an animated map of the world and what everyone's doing around the world with Twitter. ... The [Twitter] API has really been a big success for us, and it's something that we want to continue to focus our efforts on, looking forward."

5. Facebook Platform

Facebook continued to become more popular throughout 2008, reaching 140 million active users by end of the year and growing at a rate of 600,000 users each day. For that reason we gave it an honorable mention in our Best BigCo 2008 post.

However in terms of the Facebook platform, overall we felt that Google's OpenSocial overshadowed it in 2008. As we wrote in our mid-year review, Facebook Platform: The Fanfare Revisited, when the Facebook platform debuted last year it was touted as the next big thing. You no longer needed to bring the audience to your app. Instead your app could be delivered to one of the largest audiences around the web. And not just delivered, but injected into a massive social network. But while it started great, it turns out things are not that simple. Three fundamental issues surfaced:

1. Technical: Should the app be just a teaser that leads users to their site or should it be a duplicate and have full functionality?
2. Business: If e.g. New York Times builds a Facebook app, will it be economic for them (since there's little revenue in Facebook)?
3. Provider costs: Does it pay for Facebook to maintain the platform? As a business with a huge valuation, Facebook needs to maximise profit.

Despite these issues, Facebook's platform shows no signs of slowing and many startups have ported their web apps to Facebook. It may not be the bee's knees anymore, but it's still a very effective platform for startups to utilize.

6. Android

Google's open mobile OS platform, Android, burst onto the scene this year as a rival to Apple's closed iPhone platform. Google spent a lot of time this year encouraging developers to create applications for Android - and rewarding them for doing so with cold, hard cash with the Android Developer Challenge (see our previous coverage here). This led to many third party apps and multiple App Stores. The first Android phone - the "T-Mobile G1 With Google" - was launched in September, followed by a second Blackberry-like phone in December. Android apps are showing steady growth and we can expect to see this ramp up in 2009 as more handsets come on the market.

Android went open source in October, which starkly set Google apart from Apple's controlled platform. While iPhone was our top platform in 2008, Google has the opportunity to challenge for this mantle next year.

7. Amazon Web Services

Amazon's leading edge Web Services stack was first introduced to the world in 2006 and it continued to impress in 2008 - albeit with more of a business focus. Amazon Web Services basically became a more mature offering in '08 and it shored up its support services.

Amazon Web Services, led by Simple Storage Service (S3) and Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), was the first major cloud computing platform and today it powers the backend for many startups. At the beginning of the year we noted that Amazon's web services now accounts for more bandwidth than all of Amazon's global web sites combined. Then in April, Amazon announced premium for-pay support packages for some of its core infrastructure services. S3, EC2 and Simple Queue Service (SQS) each received the gold and silver level support treatment. In October Amazon announced that EC2 was coming out of beta and that it now supported Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft SQL Server (i.e. expanding beyond Linux distributions and OpenSolaris). At the same time Amazon offered a Service Level Agreement for EC2 and promised an availability of 99.95%.

8. Live Mesh

The Live Mesh service launched in April as an invite only "technology preview". It is Microsoft's attempt to tie all of our data together. Live Mesh synchronizes data across multiple devices (currently just Windows computers, but theoretically it will extend to mobile and other devices in the future) as well as to a web desktop that exists in the cloud. It can sync data across devices used by a single users, as well as create shared spaces for multiple users.

Essentially, Live Mesh is a collection of feeds (which can be expressed as ATOM, JSON, FeedSync, RSS, WB-XML, or POX). Every piece of data entered into a user's Mesh -- be it a file, a folder, a message, a user permission, or a new device -- is rendered as a piece of information in a feed. The feeds are then synced with other devices that are part of that Mesh following rules for how to sync each particular piece of information (i.e., File A may sync with Users 1, 2, and 3, while File B may only be told to sync with Users 1 and 2).

9. Fire Eagle

Earlier this year Yahoo announced that the closed beta period for its location platform Fire Eagle had ended and that the service was now open for everybody. A number of high-profile services, including Brightkite, Movable Type, Dopplr, and Pownce have implemented Fire Eagle through the numerous APIs Yahoo provides for accessing the service.

As we wrote about Fire Eagle when the beta was first announced, it offers API kits in five different programming languages, it's got user authorization protocols already available for web, desktop and mobile apps and it's using the open standards community built oAuth to facilitate faster, more secure mashups. So this platform is leveraging universal open standards.

Note: also see our coverage of the Yahoo! Internet Location Platform, a collection of in-depth geo-location based APIs.

10. Mozilla Weave

This year Mozilla announced Weave, a new web platform that will store users' browser metadata in a cloud environment for access anywhere. Weave is a "framework for services integration" that will, according to Mozilla, "focus on finding ways to enhance the Firefox user experience, increase user control over personal information, and provide new opportunities for developers to build innovative online experiences."

The basic idea is that browser metadata (things stored in your Firefox profile like bookmarks, history, RSS feeds, usernames and passwords, etc.) is pushed into the cloud and stored on Mozilla's servers. The data is available to users from wherever they get online and users can share information with friends, family, or third parties while retaining control over how, when, and if the info is shared.

Unlucky Not to Make Top 10

There were many other Web platforms that impressed us during the year. Google's Chrome browser is highly promising (but we felt it was too early to be in the top 10), Google Gears helped take the online world offline, meebo created an intriguing platform based on its core IM capabilities, Bungee Labs developed a great mashups platform, Salesforce.com had a strong year again, and on and on. It seems like every major Internet company nowadays has a platform, which is great for developers and users alike. Check out our earlier post listing 10 promising web platforms for other examples.

We hope you agree with our top 10 list, but we're sure there are one or two platforms you think should be here instead. So let us know in the comments.

Also for more about the theory and practice of platforms, check out these RWW posts:

• APIs and Developer Platforms: A Discussion on the Pros and Cons
• So You're Launching a Platform: After Ubiquitous APIs - What's the Next Frontier?
• Picking a Platform: 5 Issues to Consider
• When Web Sites Become Web Services

Demo Apps

We tested some of the demo applications that Appcelerator has created, and both the Twitter app and the 'Playtanium' desktop YouTube player worked just as advertised and felt as speedy as you would expect from a native application. Being demos, the apps were obviously not very feature rich, but clearly show the potential of the platform.

Money

Appcelerator also announced a $4.1 million Series A funding round, which should put the development of this platform on safe footing for the foreseeable future.

Bridging the Gap Between Web and Desktop

According to Jeff Haynie, Appcelerator's CEO, Titanium is meant to provide an open source alternative to other, proprietary platforms with similar feature sets. It is good to see more innovation in this space, which until now was more or less dominated by proprietary platforms.

The question, of course, will be if developers will adopt the platform for their own projects (looking at the documentation, it would seem that any Ruby programmer should be able to get a Titanium project up and running in no time). Appcelerator is definitely doing its part to help developers by providing them with ample documentation for the Titanium SDK.

Overview of two Titanium Demo Apps from jeff haynie on Vimeo.

• Project Blue Spruce Client Toolkit
• Project Blue Spruce Co-Web Server

Here's a summary of what we know so far about the Blue Spruce platform:

- Uses the WebKit Open Source Browser Engine (in the demo we saw, Safari was the browser being used)
- Uses the following Open standards: HTML, JavaScript, CSS, (All Ajax), XMPP, H.264
- Server runs on Linux, MacOS X
- Utilized OpenAjax Metadata Specification, so it can utilize any widgets
- It's being ported to IE 6+ and Firefox

NOT a Web Browser, But is a Platform

To be clear, IBM is not developing another browser. The client part of this project is based on a set of browser-based open standards technologies. They will in time (2010 timeframe) be integrated into existing browsers such as Safari, Firefox and IE.

The grand plan for IBM, we think, is that it wants the browser to become the platform for applications - thus putting pressure on companies like Microsoft and Adobe, which still rely heavily on desktop applications (albeit these days connected to the Web).

It's also worth noting that this isn't (yet) an open source project. Rod Smith described it to us as a "community-sourced" project, meaning that it's built on open standards and so others in the developer community can contribute. Smith said it "may" become an open source project in future, but it's too early to say.

Why is IBM Heading to the Browser?

We asked IBM VP of Emerging Internet Technologies Rod Smith why IBM is moving to browser-based applications. He replied that customers have been consistently telling them for 1-1.5 years now that they don't want to do installs anymore. Their customers want the rich experience that desktop apps have traditionally provided, but they want to have it in the browser. Collaboration and sharing data is also a trend that IBM is tapping into with Blue Spruce.

Proof of Concept Applications

At this time, Blue Spruce is in a closed beta period. IBM is creating applications for a number of customers, including Reuters and hospitals in Boston and New Zealand. They're focusing on 3 main areas right now: finance, health and "heavy industry" (defined as utilities, rail, steel, etc). As the project matures, we can expect to see IBM stepping up its application development efforts - services is after all a key part of IBM's business.

ReadWriteWeb was shown a number of 'proof of concept' demos. The functionality included Ajax-based mashups being used simultaneously by users in different locations (one in San Francisco, the other in Boston), audio and live streaming video (VGA currently, but HD is on the way) integrated with mashups, IM and feeds on the one browser page, and more rich functionality.

In other words, there were many different components (mashups, video, audio, etc) all happening on the same browser page. Multiple users can interact with these components in real-time and see each others changes. As IBM explained it, all of the components are live and all participants can cause change that will be propagated. This will enable customers to have 'live meetings' and collaborate on applications - all within the browser.

It's unusual to see this level of functionality in a browser currently, so we think Blue Spruce could potentially be a big deal. It certainly will make big Internet companies like Microsoft, Adobe and probably even Google sit up and take notice of Big Blue.

Web Trends

Why Platforms Are Letting Us Down - And What They Should Do About It

In good times everyone wants to be a platform. But when times are bad and platforms are just an expense, the resources suddenly shift away. The recent re-design of Facebook, the slow down of Google's Open Social, and Flock closing its extension site - these are all part of the same pattern. Platforms that don't have monetization wired in are only good for marketing. This is why the platforms of the future need to think about not just short-term marketing and buzz, but long-term sustainability and monetization.

AOL Quietly Launches One of the World's Biggest App Platforms

AOL announced the new developer site for MyAOL this week to almost no fanfare, but at a time when some are declaring the Facebook platform "dead" - AOL's new platform warrants some serious attention.

The new MyAOL platform is an OpenSocial container based on the gadgets.*API, meaning developers shouldn't have to do much to get their widgets up and running on it. A fair number of MyAOL gadgets already have millions of users, so the new developer site seems like a real opportunity.

The Future of Web 3.0 According to Yahoo!

At the Web 3.0 Conference and Expo in Santa Clara this week, Dave Beckett (principal software architect at Yahoo!) and Tom Hughes-Croucher (technical evangelist, Yahoo! Developer Network), answered questions about the recent consumer release of Yahoo! Open Strategy (Y!OS) and discussed the company's future plans to open up almost everything.

"The open source, hacker attitude has been part of our culture for so long; now we're opening up the different pieces," Hughes-Croucher told the packed room. "We're taking data from across our sites and sharing it."

Resisting Change: iGoogle and Yahoo Profile Updates Shock Users

Our review of the new iGoogle homepage was generally positive. For a large number of users, however, the latest updates, including the stronger emphasis on the full-screen canvas view, were simply unacceptable. Just this weekend, the New York Times reported about the difficulties of making drastic changes to popular web sites without alienating users. Judging from the reaction of some of iGoogle's users, Google's switch to the new iGoogle layout is a textbook example for how not to update a popular product. If Google had made these changes incrementally instead of foisting a completely new version of iGoogle onto its users without warning, it could have surely prevented the current outrage.

RWW Live: Online Personal Finance

You can't turn on the TV, visit Yahoo Finance or pick up the Wall Street Journal without hearing about the economic crisis we're in. It's caused most of us to step back and look at our own financial situation. In this week's episode of RWW Live, we looked at how you can use Web tools to improve your personal finances. We had executives from Mint, Wesabe and Tip'd on the show.

Here's the audio:

Download MP3

SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY

A Word from Our Sponsors

We'd like to thank ReadWriteWeb's sponsors, without whom we couldn't bring you all these stories every week!

• FreshBooks offers professional online invoicing.
• SocialText provides an enterprise wiki platform.
• WildApricot is Membership Management Software.
• Strands provides real-time recommendations of products.
• Calais brings semantic functionality into your site.
• MediaTemple provides hosting for RWW.
• The Web 3.0 Conference is on October 16 - 17 in Santa Clara.
• Direct Media Exchange is a solution for managing ad networks.
• Rackspace provides dedicated server hosting.
• SmartyPig is Simple. Smart. Savings.
• Quintura is a visual-based search engine.
• Eurekster is a custom social search portal.
• SixApart provides our publishing software MT4.

Web Products

Three Places To Shop For Android Apps? How Confusing!

This week, T-Mobile stocked their stores with G1 handset, the first smartphone to feature Google's mobile operating system "Android." Along with the device itself, the Google Android Market also went live. There, developers are offering a number of applications for installation on the new phone. However, the Android Market isn't the only place to get apps. Both Handango and MobiHand have app stores of their own. Will this open ecosystem be good for the "Google phone" or will it lead to consumer confusion?

See also: Android Goes Open-Source

Bloglines Returns to Challenge Google Reader - Thank Goodness

Popular RSS reader Bloglines says it's solved the much publicized recent problems with feed updating that lead smaller services to pursue its users and Google Reader triumphalists to declare the RSS reader market all zipped up. It's true that Bloglines has a lot of problems, but all software does and competition is incredibly important in any sector, including among RSS readers.

Despite its shortcomings, Bloglines is worth a look and when it works it works very well for many people. RSS is such a powerful media that it's essential that the market leader, Google, be kept on their toes.

Twine Launches 1.0 Version - Eyes Facebook, Google Reader, Delicious, Digg, ...

When Twine announced itself to the world exactly one year ago, it claimed to be "the first mainstream Semantic Web application". However despite raising millions of dollars in its quest to bring the Semantic Web to the mainstream, Twine has been beset by usability and performance issues in its beta period. Our own Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote probably the most brutal review. The post title said it all: Twine Disappoints After Semantic Web Hype.

However Twine has just launched publicly, confident that it is ready for prime time. We spoke with Twine founder and Semantic Web proponent Nova Spivack this week to find out what's changed, who's been using Twine up till now, and where the service is headed in the future.

Make Your Own iPhone/Android Apps With New App Generator

Today AppLoop launched a mobile application generator which lets you turn any RSS feed into a mobile application for either iPhone (available this week) or Android (coming soon). The company, which competes with the analytics and advertising solution MediaLets, wanted to provide everyone with the tools to make a mobile app, even if they didn't have any programming experience. To do so, they've created their new Mobile Application Generator, a tool which creates a mobile-ready application in less than two minutes.

Adobe's Ichabod and The Headless Search of Flash

While Adobe Flash has remained popular with Web developers who want to deliver fluid user interfaces, database-driven content, and nonstandard typography on the Web, it has suffered from one glaring shortcoming: search engines have been unable to effectively index the content held within the Flash file. With Ichabod, Adobe is hoping to fix that problem for Flash.

SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY

RWW Enterprise Channel

Caspio: Gritty and Profitable In a Tough Market

As part of our Gritty Entrepreneurs series, we interviewed Frank Zamani, Founder/CEO of Caspio. Their pitch is "no more programming for custom web applications". That is a tough market, which we will explore in this post. But Caspio is bootstrapped, profitable and can point to some real case studies. So they must be doing something right. Let's tell you this entrepreneur's tale and assess their future prospects.

Email us if you're interested in writing for ReadWriteWeb's Enterprise Channel.

SEE MORE ENTERPRISE COVERAGE IN OUR ENTERPRISE CHANNEL

That's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

The justification was that Mozilla was doing a better job hosting and promoting the add-ons, and the majority were the same for Flock and Firefox. Since Flock does not have enough resources to support the extension site, Evan announced the decision to "cut the fat that is our unwieldy extensions system". (Note the keyword 'fat', it will be important in the rest of the post).

In itself this move was not surprising. Flock's team has just released version 2.0 of its social browser and has other battles to fight. IE8 is coming out soon with innovative features. Mozilla is racing forward with Ubiquity and the upcoming Geo-aware Firefox 3.1. And Google threw its hat into the browser ring with Chrome, so competition is getting tight. For Flock to be a player in the browser market, it needs a razor focus on building a base of diehard fans. Extensions are not helping much in that respect, they're an expense, so it was logical to cut them.

Facebook Platform - The Big Up and The Big Let Down

When the Facebook platform was unveiled in 2007, it was called genius. Never before had a company in a single stroke enabled others to tap into millions of its users completely free. The platform was hailed as a game changer under the famous mantra "we built it and they will come". And they did come, hundreds of companies rushing to write Facebook applications. Companies and VC funds focused specifically on Facebook apps.

It really did look like a revolution, but it didn't last. The first reason was that Facebook apps quickly arranged themselves on a power law curve. A handful of apps (think Vampires, Byte Me and Sell My Friends) landed millions of users, but those in the pack had hardly any. The second problem was, ironically, the bloat. Users polluted their profiles with Facebook apps and no one could find anything in their profiles. Facebook used to be simple - pictures, wall, friends. Now each profile features a zoo of heterogenous apps, each one trying to grab the user's attention to take advantage of the network effect. Users are confused.

Worst of all, the platform had no infrastructure to monetize the applications. When Sheryl Sandberg arrived on the scene and looked at the balance sheet, she spotted the hefty expense that was the Facebook platform. Trying to live up to a huge valuation isn't easy, and in the absense of big revenues people rush to cut costs. Since it was both an expense and users were confused less than a year after its glorious launch, Facebook decided to revamp its platform.

The latest release of Facebook, which was released in July, makes it nearly impossible for new applications to take advantage of the network effect. Now users must first install the application, then find it under the application menu or one of the tabs, then check a bunch of boxes to add it to their profile (old applications are grand-daddied in). Facebook has sent a clear message to developers - the platform is no longer a priority.

Google's OpenSocial and The Me Too Syndrome

Apparently Google was threatened by the Facebook platform. Its quick response was OpenSocial, the open platform for social applications. Unlike Facebook, which was proprietary and closed, Google's was open to everyone. When OpenSocial was announced, techies raised their eyebrows - it looked raw and unpolished. Some of the existing iGoogle container APIs were mixed in with a new contact sharing library. But, being Google, a lot of people signed up to support it.

Fast forward one year later and how much has been done? Well some companies did implement some elements, but the overall buzz died. Why wouldn't Google put more resources and marketing behind it? Because now it doesn't matter. The Facebook platform play is over and so the marketing strategy called Opensocial is not a top priority for the search giant anymore.

Why Apple's App Store Will Be Different

Next we turn to the latest platform getting buzz, Apple's iPhone App Store. At first glance it's much like Facebook, but in reality it isn't. Firstly, the user profiles aren't visible - you can't see applications installed on your iPhone. Each user can decide which apps to get, based on a simple review-based dashboard. There's no promise of a massive network effect, although there's a simpler user experience.

Importantly, Apple wired the monetization into the App Store right from the start. Sure there are free applications, but for companies that want to invest resources and play on the iPhone for a long time, there is an instant, simple opportunity to monetize. Note that paid applications get priority listing in the App Store, which is no accident.

Apple took care of the most important part of the equation - the transaction. It was also able to insert itself in the middle and recoup some costs associated with building the App Store. In the future, if it takes off and sustains the growth, App Store will ring in significant revenue for Apple. Jobs and his team were smart to wire monetization into the platform at the outsert.

The Future of Platforms

Where does all this leave us? Certainly it's absurd to say that having Web platforms is a bad idea. Yet we're left with a bitter taste in our mouths after the latest moves from some big platform players. The platforms of the future need to think about not just short-term marketing and buzz, but long-term sustainability and monetization. Here are some questions that companies need to ask themselves before delivering a platform:

• Why are we building a platform?
• How will we monetize this platform?
• Will the platform make us money, and how much will it cost?
• How will applications be able to monetize the platform?
• Can we support the platform for years to come?

Our culture of sensation and free makes it much harder for platforms to think deeply and be disciplined. Google felt they had to come out with something to stop Facebook's momentum. Facebook rushed to create a completely open infrastructure; and it backfired both for users and developers. Having been burnt by Facebook, small and large companies alike will now think twice before investing in a presence on platforms. This is a shame, for we need platforms and we need them to work well.

Let us know what you think about the opportunities to plug into major platforms? What are your thoughts on the recent platform dynamics that we have witnessed?

The new MyAOL platform is an OpenSocial container based on the gadgets.*API, meaning developers shouldn't have to do much to get their widgets up and running on it. A fair number of MyAOL gadgets already have millions of users, so the new developer site seems like a real opportunity.

The new MyAOL platform enters the game at a complicated time. Widgets, little modules of content and functionality easily embedded into websites but built by 3rd parties, were supposed to be the future of the web, according to some advocates in recent years. The Facebook Platform was heralded as the widget Holy Land, but key site design decisions treated widgets poorly from the start and subsequent Facebook redesigns have banished them to near invisibility.

Defenders of the platform argue that the redesigned site just keeps really stupid apps from proliferating, making it all the more important to build widgets for actual utility. Scott Rafer, the genuinely brilliant if cynical co-founder of widget ad company Lookery, says the new Facebook is dead to him as a widget man. As a bulk-ad sales guy, Rafer's company deals in very large part with really stupid widget apps. So it goes. If your platform isn't supportive of stupid widgets, then your platform essentially doesn't support widgets at all.

MyAOL is Big

MyAOL is a good old fashioned startpage. An increasing number of AOL properties have recently started incorporating 3rd party content and moving towards a strategy of openness. AOL has a bad rap but is doing some innovative things.

The company's new platform gives third party developers access to a large group of users. How big is the AOL platform? 10 million people have installed the AOL Weather widget, 6 million have installed the Topix.net news app and there are 1 million AOL Pandora users. Those are very respectable numbers! In fact, they are much higher than almost all of the Facebook app numbers, though Facebook only exposes "active users."

The point is, it's a strange time for the much-hyped widget but the opening of the MyAOL platform represents a good opportunity. In Firefox on my Mac the site doesn't work very well, but it works well enough for millions of people. Widgets remain a promising paradigm, if only the host sites are truly comfortable promoting widget use for the long term, instead of burying 3rd party widgets and renewing their focus on in-house links.

The SMC is meant to supplement, not replace, the face-to-face interaction that occurs in the classroom. According to Howard, when he tried to introduce new media tools into his first Wi-Fi-equipped classroom, he was surprised by the blank looks on so many of the students' faces when he told them that he expected them to blog and edit the wiki. Since he was so familiar with the power of Web 2.0 tools and was surrounded by people who felt the same, he hadn't realized how many college students didn't actually have experience using these types of 21st century tools. This sparked an idea to build a new social media platform designed specifically for use in an educational setting. And thus, the Social Media Classroom was born.

What's Included

The SMC includes all the familiar social media tools from blogs to RSS to videos and wikis and even microblogging. All are integrated into one seamless environment where the different applications are available from navigational tabs at the top of the page just like any ordinary web site has. Everyone who is a member of a particular instance of the Social Media Classroom will initially see a personalized start page upon login that aggregates their own different posts to the various parts of the site.

The SMC will be available to educators both an installable version for self-hosting and as a hosted version (coming soon) for those less tech-savvy.

The Classroom and The Collaboratory

The project itself has two components called The Classroom and The Collaboratory. The The Collaboratory (or Colab) is simply the web service part of the project which is also made available to anyone, even non-educators. It includes both the downloadable install file and the soon-to-launch hosted service.

The Classroom, on the other hand, is the entire web site available at www.socialmediaclassroom.com which contains, among other things, the curriculum materials. In these materials you'll find all sorts of information about the different types of social media as well as links to various resources across the web.

21st Century Education

Social media and the participatory web have had a greater impact on our world beyond just how we connect and socialize with our friends online. The base concepts surrounding how these interactions take place has influenced a whole new generation of web users who now expect to participate in discussions and not be dictated to...whether online or offline. We've seen this influence occur in the workplace, where millennial employees demand to know "why" they're being asked to do something instead of just doing it. We've also seen it effect the business of marketing as social media users now feel strongly that brands (companies) should be listening and conversing with them in an open, transparent matter. So why not bring the social media revolution to the classroom, too? It only makes sense.

Those involved with this project believe that today's students need more than a class where a professor lectures for an hour - that has no hope of engaging their interest. Students need a classroom where learning is a more participatory experience and where the tools they use in their everyday lives - social networking, videos, chat, aren't checked at the door. The Social Media Classroom is an important project to make those types of tools available to educators who might not be as up to speed with the latest technology, while also simplifying the use of those tools through the introduction of a single platform that integrates the best of the Web 2.0 world.

Perhaps the project doesn't introduce anything new that hasn't already been available to the tech-savvy, but its ease-of-use and educational slant make its introduction an impressive and potentially game-changing move for the educational system as we know it.

Here are Marc's comments, via his post, and you can click the images to see the diagrams. Disclosure: I used to do some consulting work for Marc's company, during 2005-06.

“What does Google’s Open Mesh look like?”

Most of the infrastructure, services and applications that Google offers work all by themselves and are not dependent upon anything else. Google has launched OpenSocial and built Google Friend Connect.

Yahoo!

“How is Yahoo building the open mesh?

Yahoo probably has the most comprehensive, well architected approach towards building their own open mesh. They've left lots of room for us without getting in our way. Now they just have to execute those plans!

Microsoft

“Will Microsoft connect their Live Mesh to our Open Mesh? …[and what about the rest of Microsoft?]

Live Mesh totally rocks and it'll probably become a key element of our open mesh. It'll gateway us to mobile, car, living room, game machines.

Facebook & MySpace

“Aren’t Facebook and MySpace really Closed Meshes?” … [ and how can we connect to them?]

Sending out tentacles or satellites isn't the same as being open.

We've written a lot of times about developer platforms for the Web and we've reviewed a fair number of them. A web platform at its simplest is an API, allowing external developers to build on top of your web app or product. As we explained in our post APIs and Developer Platforms: A Discussion on the Pros and Cons, "offering an API is a great way to make developer friends and developing for a large Platform has the potential to bring your work to a huge audience."

1. Imeem Developer Platform: Music

Major social networking site Imeem launched a developer platform in March that will enable read/write access to user information and more. Imeem is a site where users can upload music, create and listen to any uploads and blog about music all for free. Imeem pays internet radio-style licensing fees for each time a copyrighted song is played.

The new platform is a Flex and ActionScript API that will let developers create customized music players, access activity data and build things like recommendation engines, smart playlists and music games.

Read more...

2. YouTube Platform: Online Video

The video uploading platform announced by YouTube in March may not have been what many pundits expected but it could mark a major turning point for both YouTube and thousands of other sites around the web.

By allowing website owners to combine an on-site video publishing option for their users with the huge number of people looking to discover new content on YouTube, the platform will create a mutually beneficial feedback loop that will breathe new life into both YouTube and the web at large. It's also got potential to show up all the other big platform plays we've seen to date.

Read more...

3. Fire Eagle: Yahoo's Location Platform

Earlier this month Yahoo announced that the closed beta period for its location platform Fire Eagle had ended and that the service was now open for everybody.. Since then, a number of high-profile services, including Brightkite, Movable Type, Dopplr, and Pownce have implemented Fire Eagle through the numerous APIs Yahoo provides for accessing the service.

As we wrote about Fire Eagle when the beta was first announced, it offers API kits in five different programming languages, it's got user authorization protocols already available for web, desktop and mobile apps and it's using the open standards community built oAuth to facilitate faster, more secure mashups. This ain't no cry-baby do it my way or I'm taking my ball and going home framework like the Facebook platform. This is leveraging universal open standards.

Note: also see our coverage of the Yahoo! Internet Location Platform, a collection of in-depth geo-location based APIs.

Read more...

4. Mozilla Weave: Web Platform for User Data

Mozilla recently announced Weave, a new web platform that will store users' browser metadata in a cloud environment for access anywhere. Weave is a "framework for services integration" that will, according to Mozilla, "focus on finding ways to enhance the Firefox user experience, increase user control over personal information, and provide new opportunities for developers to build innovative online experiences."

The basic idea is that browser metadata (things stored in your Firefox profile like bookmarks, history, RSS feeds, usernames and passwords, etc.) is pushed into the cloud and stored on Mozilla's servers. The data is available to users from wherever they get online and users can share information with friends, family, or third parties while retaining control over how, when, and if the info is shared.

Read more...

5. Live Mesh: Microsoft's Multi-device Platform

The new Live Mesh service launched in April as an invite only "technology preview". It is Microsoft's attempt to tie all of our data together. Live Mesh synchronizes data across multiple devices (currently just Windows computers, but theoretically it will extend to mobile and other devices in the future) as well as to a web desktop that exists in the cloud. It can sync data across devices used by a single users, as well as create shared spaces for multiple users. On the surface, Mesh is a lot like competing file sync services such as Dropbox, SugarSync (which we covered in January), and even Microsoft's own FolderShare product. But what sets Live Mesh apart is its platform approach.

Essentially, Live Mesh is a collection of feeds (which can be expressed as ATOM, JSON, FeedSync, RSS, WB-XML, or POX). Every piece of data entered into a user's Mesh -- be it a file, a folder, a message, a user permission, or a new device -- is rendered as a piece of information in a feed. The feeds are then synced with other devices that are part of that Mesh following rules for how to sync each particular piece of information (i.e., File A may sync with Users 1, 2, and 3, while File B may only be told to sync with Users 1 and 2).

Read more...

6. Hakia's Semantic API

Semantic search engine Hakia announced in June a set of APIs that opens up their natural language processing and search platform to developers. Hakia's Syndication Web Services really comes in two parts: search queries, which allow developers to add web search functionality leveraging Hakia's five billion page index, and XML feed calls, which give developers access to Hakia's underlying natural language processing technology. The latter of the two is clearly the more compelling of the offerings. [disclosure: hakia has been a RWW sponsor]

Read more...

7. Iceberg: Everyone Can Program

There was a time when only technically-savvy people knew how to create content and publish it to the internet, but the rise of easy-to-use blogging and CMS systems changed that. Today, everyone can be a publisher. Now, Iceberg wants to bring that same democratization to programming. In fact, that's their vision for Web 3.0 - the web where everyone is a programmer.

Build an App in 3 Minutes

In June Iceberg launched publicly. Although the focus is on business applications, like CRM or PM tools, you can interface with anything that offers up a web service. For enterprise environments, instead of using Iceberg as a service, I.T. departments can download and use Iceberg offline, behind the firewall, to work with their in-house servers, like Windows SQL server for example.

Read more...

8. Cascada Mobile: Anyone Can Build a Mobile App

In July Cascada Mobile launched a platform called Cascada Breeze, allowing anyone to take their idea from thought to app in about fifteen minutes. Well, maybe not anyone - the apps are built using HTML, so you would have to have some rudimentary web programming knowledge to use their platform. Still, you have to admit, that's a lot easier than using a professional development platform.

With Breeze, you can build, test, and distribute mobile J2ME apps that run on hundreds and handsets. And these are "real" apps, too - fully integrated mobile applications with their own icon, not just mobile widgets.

Read more...

9. Android: Google's Open Mobile Phone Platform

We said we wouldn't discuss iPhone, but we can't help mentioning Android - because of its potential to really open up the up-till-now closed mobile phone platform ecosystem. Earlier this week we reported that the HTC Dream, the first handset to run Android (aka "the Google Phone") has been approved by the FCC. In the documents provided, it appears that we have now a release date for this highly anticipated phone: November 10th, 2008.

Google has been encouraging developers to create applications for Android and rewarding them for doing so with cold, hard cash with the Android Developer Challenge. (See our previous coverage here). This has led to numerous third-party applications ready to flood the market when the phone goes to launch, regardless as to which developers win the big prizes (Pictured: Teradesk App). According to PCWorld, Google Developer Advocate Jason Chen told the Android breakout session at May's Google I/O event that developers won't need to get Android applications certified by anyone nor will there be any hidden APIs accessible only to handset makers or mobile operators. Even the phone's homescreen and widgets will be customizable - that's a much different take than the locked-down iPhone - and one that caters to users who like to make their phones their own.

Read more...

10. Meebo: Web Instant Messaging

Unlike most other platforms in the news these days, the Meebo Platform is a closed one. As at December more than 300 companies had registered to build applications but only 39 had been accepted into the program. Most are multiperson gaming apps, the rest video and voice chat apps. Companies chosen to participate in the Platform work closely with Meebo to assure high-quality integration of their applications, the company says.

The Meebo Platform is the third step in the vision for the company, after building a basic web IM service and then integrating that service into other sites through tools like MeeboMe and MeeboRooms.

Read more...

We hope you enjoyed this overview of 10 promising web developer platforms. For more about the theory and practice of platforms, check out Marshall Kirkpatrick's post So You're Launching a Platform: After Ubiquitous APIs - What's the Next Frontier?. A good companion piece is Picking a Platform: 5 Issues to Consider. Also read Alex Iskold's classic March '07 analysis When Web Sites Become Web Services.

Top image via ottonassar

The first phones using Google's Android platform were meant to go to market by the second half of this year. According to the Wall Street Journal, however, Google is facing some major setbacks thanks to the intricacies of the cell phone business.

In the international market, Google is also facing a number of problems. China Mobile apparently has problems translating the Android software into Chinese characters.

Unlike Apple, which put a lot of pressure on AT&T to retain control of both the hardware and software, Google is pursuing a different strategy by just providing the software platform and leaving everything else to the hardware manufacturers and network providers.

This news is definitely coming at a bad time for Google. Apple is set to release the next version of its iPhone on July 11th and a lot of buyers who were in the market for a modern smartphone and considered waiting for an Android phone might now move to an Apple or Blackberry device instead.

As of launch, the gallery contains 39 approved applications. These range from apps enhancing Yelp! and LinkedIn results to one that provides a code reference for Ruby related searches.

SearchMonkey has the potential to be very disruptive in the search space. It gives web developers the ability to enhance the display of search results without the ability to influence search rankings. Who better to know how to best display content than those who created it? Unfortunately, the search applications I tried out today mostly didn't seem ready for primetime.

As you can see in the screenshot above, the Yelp! application that I installed didn't really enhance search results beyond slapping a logo next to the URL. In theory, my search for the Petite Deli in San Francisco should have yielded a Yelp! result with the deli's address, phone number, rating and links directly to user reviews and photos. The IMDB application (which admittedly appears not to have been created by IMDB) gave me connection errors, and the Last.fm app behaved similar to the Yelp! application for me -- it enhanced nothing.

Did Yahoo! jump the gun on pushing the Search Gallery public? Or perhaps have their gallery approval standards been too low and these apps just haven't been tested thoroughly enough? Or is this a local problem? Let us know your experiences with the new search apps in the comments below. Yahoo! will win no converts with applications that don't work as advertised.

Edit: I eventually got some of the faulty apps to load after repeating my search a few times. As Greg in the comments below noted, this might be a caching issue. That's still something that Yahoo! should deal with, as first impressions are often lasting impressions.

Tejit CEO Indus Khaitan began developing Tejit in 2007 as a personal project when he became frustrated reading duplicate content from the 1000+ blogs he had bookmarked. Since then, Tejit has expanded its analysis capabilities across millions of blogs. Tejit's semantic-analysis engine uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) and semantic matching technology to identify topics, sentiments and entities present in web content.

A Flawed Tradition

According to SezWho CEO, Jitendra Gupta,

The traditional method of content discovery based on the similarity of content is not adequate for connecting conversation across social sites in a meaningful way. A new level of context-sensitive, semantic discovery is required to reflect all the layers of users' participation across the social web, and to track their contributions in a way that is universally relevant both within and across communities.

There's no doubt that the traditional rating system for comments has its flaws. In a post titled "Disqus Clout: Fail!", Phil Glockner of Scribkin points out one of the biggest flaws of comment rating systems using Disqus as an example. In the comments section, Louis Gray sums up the problem nicely:

I would expect it rewards those who comment most frequently, and wouldn't be so much a subjective view.

More Than Just A Rating System

Instead of replacing your comment system, SezWho aims to augment the conversations. Keeping the aforementioned flaw in mind, SezWho considers two important factors that: distributed conversations and the people behind them. SezWho provides a meta network information around participants and context. The context has information from various platforms to allow data and content to reside within the community. The service captures valuable information about the history and expertise of individual contributors. Community ratings are only a portion of the cumulative rankings for an overall score.

SezWho provided us with a comparison chart to better demonstrate the differences between what SezWho offers versus competitors Disqus and Intense Debate, which we've previously reviewed.

Adding Noise or Resolving Issues?

With all that SezWho adds, it can be argued that some of it will amount to more noise for users. While, we've previously used SezWho here on ReadWriteWeb to enhance our community, some of our writers are using the less complicated Disqus platform on their personal blogs. We wonder if the amount of blog coverage has also affected SezWho's userbase compared to Disqus, which has seen tremendous coverage since its launch.

With SezWho, other important issues are being tackled beyond their enhanced reputation system such as keeping track of conversations over a plethora of platforms and enabling a more sophisticated way to discover relevant content. SezWho aims to enhance communities rather than replace them,but can they filter the noise that's add everyday?

The gist of what's being enabled is this: applications can provide the name of one location and then the Yahoo! APIs will report neighboring and "parent" locations. Flickr developer and map lover Dan Catt articulates the potential power of the API very well in a blog post today.

Yahoo! explains the breadth and depth of location data it now offers thusly: "The [Platform] contains about six million places. Coverage varies from country-to-country but globally includes several hundred thousand unique administrative areas with half a million variant names; several thousand historical administrative areas; over two million unique settlements and suburbs, and two-and-a-half million unique postcode points covering about 150 countries, plus a significant number of points of interest, Colloquial Regions, Area Codes, Time Zones, and Islands."

Geolocation is Hot Everywhere

Geolocation is hot, a number of new projects are underway to leverage increasingly sophisticated geographic knowledge to deliver value to end users. See our coverage of Brightkite and of Yahoo!'s own excellent FireEagle, for example.

Flickr developer Catt explains, for example, that Flickr could use the new APIs to offer images of nearby photos on several different levels, with accuracy as granular as Flickr is able to output.

There are a lot of interesting possibilities, not just for mapping but for services that are map aware. What would you like to see turned geo-smart? We're excited to see what developers come up with. We probably won't have to wait for long, either, since the Platform was released the day before O'Reilly's Where 2.0 conference begins in Burlingame, California. Keep your eyes peeled for location savvy apps this week!