The Platform and The Content
The most interesting component of Web 2.0 in my opinion is that many companies formed around the idea of being a platform – we’ll call them Platform Businesses. Content for the platform was contributed by the users. The sites that have succeeded thus far have been the best at creating and marketing those platforms. Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and Yelp are all examples of this idea. They create and hone the platform and users provide the content.
What is happening next, in what may be called Web 3.0 is that there are still the platform-based companies but now the platforms are opening up an API so that other companies can create applications for the platform. In this way applications are a hybrid between content and platforms. The base platform still exists and the users still exist but now there is an added layer in the middle. Facebook is a great example of this – it provides the platform, users provide the content but applications provide additional tools through which users can interact.
The looming question as I see it, is who will be the great platform provider at the bottom of the pile in any given market segment and is it a desired position?
I’d like to read your thoughts on this (especially if it affects your industry) so please comment below.
A few of the great web 1.0 sites are platform sites. Look at Ebay, users create all the content of ebay. Paypal too, if transactions there can be considered content.
There have been plenty of sites where users create 99% of the content was user generated, even back in 2000, like photo.net. They didn’t get big because they are just too much of a niche, but without the community it would just be some guy’s personal homepage.
I don’t quite understand the “looming question”. I would cite Facebook as a great platform provider. Is that a desired position- I think so. Successful platform providers will find ways to leverage/monetize their audience.
What’s interesting to me, from a content creator’s standpoint, is that as platforms provide increasing access to their data, the platform itself becomes largely irrelevant. That’s not to say that facebook is irrelevant- it’s hugely relevant because it represents such a huge audience. But if I can extract my content using an API, it doesn’t really matter where my content lives- I can go where the audience is. With an API I can access all my content from any platform and (potentially) recombine it in meaningful ways.
For me, the looming question is- how can content be recombined in meaningful ways? I have no idea what that looks like, but I think it involves crafting content-specific user experiences. A politician and a musician may both have twitter, facebook and youtube accounts. However, the user experience for each could (should?) be very different.
Gary ~ True about the web 1.0 sites. In fact, I’d say those were the ones that helped innovate and push toward the 2.0 world. Thanks for the good point!
Paul~ I agree about the question of how to get content recombined in meaningful ways. I think youtube, facebook, etc have cemented themselves for now as a “platform” business. But I wonder what other Facebooks (bottom level platforms) are out there waiting to be born in other industries.
As little as I know or at least perceive of the subject; it seems to me that as the platform ‘market’ becomes more saturated there is a growing need for universal API which will pull together all platforms. As Paul was saying, it’s not where the UGC is stored but how it is accessed and recombined in such a way that it useful as opposed to a chore to find. One has to wonder if such a thing were to happen with the inception of Web 3.0, how would security not be an inhibitor to progress?
It is always difficult to guess at what other mass marketable breakthroughs such as facebook will be next in the limelight but to cross referrence social and technological factors may help. One question arises, will it be what people currently need or will the need be created?
Simon and Paul~ Am I reading you correctly in that you think there won’t necessarily be a major platform company at the bottom of every industry? Instead there will be just applications that all tie in together in some useful way?
It’s tough to divine that, but in my mind there’s a catch22 for platform companies providing industry-specific solutions. Platform co’s need to achieve critical mass in order to be relevant. Critical mass is easier to achieve when you provide a general service that appeals to a wide audience- that’s kind of the antithesis of providing a narrow industry-specific solution.
I always think of http://purevolume.com as an example of an industry-specific platform. Maybe I’m mischaracterizing, but I think of PureVolume as ‘MySpace for musicians and music discovery’. Personally, I think PureVolume is a fantastic platform and a superior experience, but has it become more vital to musicians than say, MySpace? My impression is no.
It’s far more complicated than that, but I think the trend is to embrace and leverage the success of existing networks- not try to compete with them. For that reason I think the logical evolution is to cherry-pick from existing tools a recombine them in smart ways for specific applications.
Paul~ Great response, thanks! Just what I was looking for.