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9 July 2007
Some follow-up Platform thoughts
Posted by Paul Miller at July 9, 2007 11:05 AM
Last week I wrote a blog post looking at some of the different ways in which 'Platforms' are being brought to web scale and pervasiveness. In writing, I concentrated upon the quite different approaches that I saw Facebook and ourselves taking, and went on to link that with some fuzzier notions on the manner in which each 'Platform' participated in the life of the wider web.
Kingsley Idehen and others extend and clarify my thinking in the comments, and the topic is also expanded by fellow Talisian Danny Ayers in a post of his own. Paul Walk, an appointment to UKOLN after my time there, has independently given some thought to the same question, and he appears to share my view that Facebook's kind of Platform is in danger of being a regressive return to all that was worst about the mega-portals...
“I just can’t get all that excited about facebook as a platform. From my point of view, in an exciting era of mashups, facebook is only seriously mashable in one direction, and it’s the wrong direction. If facebook’s social networks were exposed to the web, ‘mine-able’ and mashable - now that would be exciting.”
Paul also has some valuable links out to relevant commentary from Marc Andreesen, Jon Udell (did I mention that he's accepted my invitation to join our new Advisory Group?) and others.
Facebook, of course, appears to have a business model that relies upon drawing a large community to their site, again and again and again. Opening up in order to allow Facebook's members, partners and parasites to expose some of that content and capability in other contexts might make Facebook a better web citizen and a poster child for Linked Data... but it won't pay the bills unless their business model is quite dramatically re-engineered. Even if Facebook wants to participate and become truly 'of' the web [and there's nothing, actually, to suggest that they don't], can they afford to?
In his comment, Kingsley makes the point that there are 'Platforms for Exposing Data & Services on the web' (those I suggested were 'on the web') and 'Platforms for injecting data and services into the web' (my 'of the web'). There are viable business models for both. Facebook and other high profile 'Web 2.0' darlings are clear examples of the former, and they're doing well just now. Examples of the latter include ourselves, Kingsley's own Virtuoso, Nova Spivack's Radar Networks [podcast], Metaweb [podcast], etc. As more and more data become visible to the web, and as we get a handle on the usage ambiguities that surround this area, we enter an interesting period in which the slow burn toward a Web of Data becomes ever more visible, and ever more compelling.
Those who can harness the best of the 'old' to this new breed of Platform will be in a powerful position to move far beyond the narrow slices through a fragmented Web that are the useful yet ultimately disappointing best Facebook and their ilk can currently offer.
The trick is finding ways in which existing businesses can evolve themselves, their communities, and their revenue streams in order to benefit from change, rather than being overwhelmed and consumed by it. Maybe it's time for the Web of Data proponents of the world (of which I'd count myself one) to sit down with the successful social networking destinations, and to pragmatically explore our middle ground. We have much to learn from one another.
Today's picture by Derrick Mealiffe shows what can happen to Platforms that fail to adapt.
Technorati Tags: Facebook, Linked Data, Talis, Talis Platform, Web 2.0, Web 3.0
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