By creating an open platform, Facebook has made the big picture decision that encouraging third party developers to build applications leveraging their social graph is beneficial to the company's bottom line, allowing them to be embedded in places where they otherwise wouldn't be.
This is where utilizing a product company's platform can be very morally dicey. They offer a platform for others to build on, because it raises the value of their company by making it more pervasive. They also build their own products on top of their platform.
Which takes precedence over the other? My view is this: in the long run, the developer platform is more valuable than any product Facebook can build themselves. The short term thinking that is demonstrated here leads to damaging the trust that developers have in the Facebook platform.
It's one thing to use Facebook for authentication. It's easy and takes little investment. However, building a REAL product on the platform is a risk. If Facebook behaves like this, they show that it's a risk NOT worth taking, and they devalue their own platform, putting short term gain (product) over long term gain (platform).
I think that was the point of the meeting. They saw that there was a developer in the space they wanted to enter. They could have just undercut him without a thought, but instead offered to work with/buy out his product. This happens.
Microsoft and Google are doing it with hardware. I imagine the phone/tablet manufacturers had a similar reaction as this guy, but didn't go blogging about it on the web. It's good for us that he did, because OEMs talk to each other in meetings. Small time devs best communicate a company's intentions via the web.
Except that it won't, i.e. Microsoft in the 90's and Apple on the iOS/Mac platform. Businesses will follow the markets which have the greatest opportunity to turn over profit. In fact Microsoft used to call their relationship an "ecosystem" because like a predator they would gobble up or crush the smaller players.
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By creating an open platform, Facebook has made the big picture decision that encouraging third party developers to build applications leveraging their social graph is beneficial to the company's bottom line, allowing them to be embedded in places where they otherwise wouldn't be. This is where utilizing a product company's platform can be very morally dicey. They offer a platform for others to build on, because it raises the value of their company by making it more pervasive. They also build their own products on top of their platform. Which takes precedence over the other? My view is this: in the long run, the developer platform is more valuable than any product Facebook can build themselves. The short term thinking that is demonstrated here leads to damaging the trust that developers have in the Facebook platform.
It's one thing to use Facebook for authentication. It's easy and takes little investment. However, building a REAL product on the platform is a risk. If Facebook behaves like this, they show that it's a risk NOT worth taking, and they devalue their own platform, putting short term gain (product) over long term gain (platform).
I think that was the point of the meeting. They saw that there was a developer in the space they wanted to enter. They could have just undercut him without a thought, but instead offered to work with/buy out his product. This happens.
Microsoft and Google are doing it with hardware. I imagine the phone/tablet manufacturers had a similar reaction as this guy, but didn't go blogging about it on the web. It's good for us that he did, because OEMs talk to each other in meetings. Small time devs best communicate a company's intentions via the web.
Except that it won't, i.e. Microsoft in the 90's and Apple on the iOS/Mac platform. Businesses will follow the markets which have the greatest opportunity to turn over profit. In fact Microsoft used to call their relationship an "ecosystem" because like a predator they would gobble up or crush the smaller players.
Yeah, but that's why linux caught on.
That said, the real difference is that Microsoft's platform was better. It offered more power for less risk.