5 ms·

Meh, personally I dislike the idea of building a business on top of someone else's platform. Facebook/Twitter/etc are good ways to reach out to people and spre

by rpledge 16y ago

Meh, personally I dislike the idea of building a business on top of someone else's platform. Facebook/Twitter/etc are good ways to reach out to people and spread your message, but it's too easy for them to block you or reimplement your idea.

thisorthat 16y ago
Agreed 100% and came here to say just this. Perfect recent example would be Tweetmeme. Plus you do not know how long these platforms are going to last there just here until someone comes up with something better. When they fold you fold unless you can adapt like those companies that made applications for Myspace and then moved on to Facebook.
- jambo 16y ago
  Tweetmeme isn't a great example. They didn't get steamrolled—they now power the official Tweet Button, and they'll power (they are?) DataSift, which is going to give people crazy querying capability against real-time twitter data.
  - thisorthat 16y ago
    hmmm... I read either on mashable or techcrunch that tweetmeme was changing focus to analytics since twitter decided to do the retweet. Never saw anything about them working with Twitter. Found the link: http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/12/twitter-tweet-button/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/12/twitter-tweet-button/ I do see mentioning of an agreement with Twitter but it is my understanding that Twitter has a licensing agreement to use the tweetmeme technology not that tweetmeme will be powering everything.
    - jambo 16y ago
      http://blog.tweetmeme.com/tag/datasift/ http://blog.tweetmeme.com/tag/datasift/ Edit: You could be right about the Tweet Button. DataSift will be run on TweetMeme's servers drawing data from the firehose.
colonelxc 16y ago
I generally agree, but this arrangement makes it a little different. Working closely with facebook like this, you're kind of on the inside. They're not going to block someone they are partnering with, and with an advanced look at the beta features, you're not going to be hit with broken apps with the api changes. As far as reimplementing goes, I think they'd just buy you first. They've already invested time and resources to help you develop your app/site, so it will be natural for them just to aquire you. It's perfect for YC (extra high chance for the startups to be bought by FB) and good for FB (people doing cool, interesting social things they can incorporate). I am still not a fan, but I guess I'm not a huge fan of Facebook anyways.
- Silhouette 16y ago
  > Working closely with facebook like this, you're kind of on the inside. Sure, but there is a risk/benefit analysis to be done here. If you bet your business on one big company like that, you not only are you betting that the company won't choose to squish you, you are also betting that the company will remain strong enough to support you for as long as it matters. If you are aiming to build a modest company whose service is fundamentally tied into a currently dominant big player and probably looking for an early exit, that might not matter all that much. On the other hand, if you have a neat general idea and the big company just happens to be the dominant platform in a relevant field today, that doesn't mean they will still be so tomorrow, and your idea might fit with competitor platforms just as neatly. Personally, of all the companies in the world I would not build my business around today, Facebook is one of the top three. The others are Google and Apple. All three have a demonstrable history of trying stuff and then backpeddling, so if you get taken over, you might get a bit from your options but your idea and future development are hardly secure. All three have a track record of screwing the little guy, sometimes without even noticing, so if you're just building on their platform independently, you're highly vulnerable. And worst of all, I expect all three to take a severe legal and/or market-driven beating within the next couple of years. For Google or Facebook, it will probably be on privacy grounds. You just can't go around making the arrogant statements their execs keep making, and presuming to collect and sell that kind of personally sensitive data, in a world where the public is increasingly concerned about these things and serious crime built around data loss and ID theft is rising fast. Both companies have already been hit hard by privacy watchdogs in several countries. For Apple, it will probably be because the walls around their garden aren't strong enough but their corporate arrogance makes them think they are. Steve will probably just wake up one morning and suddenly realise that Android phones or a resurgence from a player like Palm or Blackberry has taken most of his market share, without even noticing how it happened. Plus of course there are always the basic business threats. Facebook only needs enough people to start leaving that it can no longer function as the de facto standard way for friends to share stuff and it's toast, just like other social networks before it. Google only needs someone else to come up with a better way to do search and it's toast, just like other search engines before it. Apple... Well, they have a prestige brand in the middle of the worst financial crisis in two generations, so you do the math. To avoid going down with the ship, if I were building a new on-line tool today and needed to work with a big player for platform support, I would definitely want to be working on portable, open standards as much as possible. That is exactly what big players like Facebook do not have, and will try to their dying financial statement not to introduce since it would be anathema to their business model.
ojbyrne 16y ago
I guess an obvious exception is that there is an entire industry (SEO) built on google's platform.
- InclinedPlane 16y ago
  A lot of practical (i.e. not just gaming the system) SEO tactics are valid for almost any search engine, not just Google's.
  - staunch 16y ago
    Even so, almost every business built on SEO would go under if they lost their Google traffic.
    - InclinedPlane 16y ago
      If you're not providing services to others and all you do is SEO then by definition I think you are gaming the system. So yes, that's almost certain to be very closely coupled to Google specifically.
  - ojbyrne 16y ago
    How much of that is due to other search engines copying Google? I'd guess that Excite isn't a big focus for SEO companies.
    - InclinedPlane 16y ago
      A lot of it is fundamentals, stuff that would still apply if every search engine were wiped out in a plague and were replaced with clean-room substitutes. Stuff like using semantic html as much as possible, using sensible text for urls and hyperlink text, ensuring the most useful content shows up with javascript/images/css turned off, ensuring important links can be reached other than through search, etc.
- staunch 16y ago
  Or building your business on your government's "platform". At some point the stability, openness, and size are enough to reduce the risk to a very low level. I'm sure it's safe to bet on: Windows, OSX, and Google. I really don't think Facebook is there yet. Not given how quickly we went from Friendster -> MySpace -> Facebook.
mgummelt 16y ago
That statement is too general. Obviously it's a good idea for desktop software developers to build on the Windows platform. I build websites on the "IE platform" in that I rely on IE for distribution. Does Facebook have a history of cutting off services that use their API's? Also, Facebook can implement your idea even if you're not on their platform. Look at FB Places. I don't see how using the FB platform makes it any more likely that they will move into your space.
- chrischen 16y ago
  But if you're dependent on Facebook it can also cut you off, or at least not support you anymore. It's not about preventing competition, it's about your supplier becoming your competitor.
  - mgummelt 16y ago
    If you build on any platform that you don't control (which every software developer does), you can be cut off. The question is whether or not Facebook has a history of doing this. I'm not aware of one. A platform becoming your competitor is fair game, and doesn't imply they will do anything sneaky like making their platform any less accessible to you. Microsoft is in the Operating System business, but MS Office is a fair competitor to other office suites that run on Windows. I understand the concern about Facebook though, because they aren't (yet) a platform like Windows is. Microsoft started out making the platform, and then built some nice user facing applications to go on top of it. MS Office uses the same OS system calls that are available to every Windows developer. Facebook started out as a user facing product (facebook.com) and then pushed down into the stack. The issue with that is that facebook.com and other Facebook products are based on leaky abstractions. They don't just sit on top of the Facebook platform. They can do things with the social graph that no 3rd party application can do. This is where Facebook can have an unfair advantage, and why people are worried about building on top of them. The good thing is that Facebook is working on sealing off the abstraction barrier between their platform and their products. Look at the evolution of their API's. MUCH better social applications are going to pop up once we can all build the same user-facing products that Facebook can build. The great thing is that it's in their best interest. Facebook is much more powerful as Windows than as MS Office.
pg 16y ago
They seem sensitive to this concern. One of the points Bret made at the event was that they're changing things to ensure your users really are yours.
- 9oliYQjP 16y ago
  FB just bought ChaiLabs who responded by "pausing" their beta API. My first thought (well after thinking "crap, there goes all my work") was that they wanted to absorb the ChaiLabs API into the FB platform. So, while they might seem sensitive to the concern, I'm not quite sure it's mitigating the very real "walled garden"/AOL quagmire.

by rpledge 16y ago

thisorthat 16y ago

Agreed 100% and came here to say just this. Perfect recent example would be Tweetmeme. Plus you do not know how long these platforms are going to last there just here until someone comes up with something better. When they fold you fold unless you can adapt like those companies that made applications for Myspace and then moved on to Facebook.

jambo 16y ago
Tweetmeme isn't a great example. They didn't get steamrolled—they now power the official Tweet Button, and they'll power (they are?) DataSift, which is going to give people crazy querying capability against real-time twitter data.
- thisorthat 16y ago
  hmmm... I read either on mashable or techcrunch that tweetmeme was changing focus to analytics since twitter decided to do the retweet. Never saw anything about them working with Twitter. Found the link: http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/12/twitter-tweet-button/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/12/twitter-tweet-button/ I do see mentioning of an agreement with Twitter but it is my understanding that Twitter has a licensing agreement to use the tweetmeme technology not that tweetmeme will be powering everything.
  - jambo 16y ago
    http://blog.tweetmeme.com/tag/datasift/ http://blog.tweetmeme.com/tag/datasift/ Edit: You could be right about the Tweet Button. DataSift will be run on TweetMeme's servers drawing data from the firehose.

colonelxc 16y ago

I generally agree, but this arrangement makes it a little different. Working closely with facebook like this, you're kind of on the inside. They're not going to block someone they are partnering with, and with an advanced look at the beta features, you're not going to be hit with broken apps with the api changes. As far as reimplementing goes, I think they'd just buy you first. They've already invested time and resources to help you develop your app/site, so it will be natural for them just to aquire you. It's perfect for YC (extra high chance for the startups to be bought by FB) and good for FB (people doing cool, interesting social things they can incorporate). I am still not a fan, but I guess I'm not a huge fan of Facebook anyways.

Silhouette 16y ago
> Working closely with facebook like this, you're kind of on the inside. Sure, but there is a risk/benefit analysis to be done here. If you bet your business on one big company like that, you not only are you betting that the company won't choose to squish you, you are also betting that the company will remain strong enough to support you for as long as it matters. If you are aiming to build a modest company whose service is fundamentally tied into a currently dominant big player and probably looking for an early exit, that might not matter all that much. On the other hand, if you have a neat general idea and the big company just happens to be the dominant platform in a relevant field today, that doesn't mean they will still be so tomorrow, and your idea might fit with competitor platforms just as neatly. Personally, of all the companies in the world I would not build my business around today, Facebook is one of the top three. The others are Google and Apple. All three have a demonstrable history of trying stuff and then backpeddling, so if you get taken over, you might get a bit from your options but your idea and future development are hardly secure. All three have a track record of screwing the little guy, sometimes without even noticing, so if you're just building on their platform independently, you're highly vulnerable. And worst of all, I expect all three to take a severe legal and/or market-driven beating within the next couple of years. For Google or Facebook, it will probably be on privacy grounds. You just can't go around making the arrogant statements their execs keep making, and presuming to collect and sell that kind of personally sensitive data, in a world where the public is increasingly concerned about these things and serious crime built around data loss and ID theft is rising fast. Both companies have already been hit hard by privacy watchdogs in several countries. For Apple, it will probably be because the walls around their garden aren't strong enough but their corporate arrogance makes them think they are. Steve will probably just wake up one morning and suddenly realise that Android phones or a resurgence from a player like Palm or Blackberry has taken most of his market share, without even noticing how it happened. Plus of course there are always the basic business threats. Facebook only needs enough people to start leaving that it can no longer function as the de facto standard way for friends to share stuff and it's toast, just like other social networks before it. Google only needs someone else to come up with a better way to do search and it's toast, just like other search engines before it. Apple... Well, they have a prestige brand in the middle of the worst financial crisis in two generations, so you do the math. To avoid going down with the ship, if I were building a new on-line tool today and needed to work with a big player for platform support, I would definitely want to be working on portable, open standards as much as possible. That is exactly what big players like Facebook do not have, and will try to their dying financial statement not to introduce since it would be anathema to their business model.

ojbyrne 16y ago

I guess an obvious exception is that there is an entire industry (SEO) built on google's platform.

InclinedPlane 16y ago
A lot of practical (i.e. not just gaming the system) SEO tactics are valid for almost any search engine, not just Google's.
- staunch 16y ago
  Even so, almost every business built on SEO would go under if they lost their Google traffic.
  - InclinedPlane 16y ago
    If you're not providing services to others and all you do is SEO then by definition I think you are gaming the system. So yes, that's almost certain to be very closely coupled to Google specifically.
- ojbyrne 16y ago
  How much of that is due to other search engines copying Google? I'd guess that Excite isn't a big focus for SEO companies.
  - InclinedPlane 16y ago
    A lot of it is fundamentals, stuff that would still apply if every search engine were wiped out in a plague and were replaced with clean-room substitutes. Stuff like using semantic html as much as possible, using sensible text for urls and hyperlink text, ensuring the most useful content shows up with javascript/images/css turned off, ensuring important links can be reached other than through search, etc.
staunch 16y ago
Or building your business on your government's "platform". At some point the stability, openness, and size are enough to reduce the risk to a very low level. I'm sure it's safe to bet on: Windows, OSX, and Google. I really don't think Facebook is there yet. Not given how quickly we went from Friendster -> MySpace -> Facebook.

mgummelt 16y ago

That statement is too general. Obviously it's a good idea for desktop software developers to build on the Windows platform. I build websites on the "IE platform" in that I rely on IE for distribution. Does Facebook have a history of cutting off services that use their API's? Also, Facebook can implement your idea even if you're not on their platform. Look at FB Places. I don't see how using the FB platform makes it any more likely that they will move into your space.

chrischen 16y ago
But if you're dependent on Facebook it can also cut you off, or at least not support you anymore. It's not about preventing competition, it's about your supplier becoming your competitor.
- mgummelt 16y ago
  If you build on any platform that you don't control (which every software developer does), you can be cut off. The question is whether or not Facebook has a history of doing this. I'm not aware of one. A platform becoming your competitor is fair game, and doesn't imply they will do anything sneaky like making their platform any less accessible to you. Microsoft is in the Operating System business, but MS Office is a fair competitor to other office suites that run on Windows. I understand the concern about Facebook though, because they aren't (yet) a platform like Windows is. Microsoft started out making the platform, and then built some nice user facing applications to go on top of it. MS Office uses the same OS system calls that are available to every Windows developer. Facebook started out as a user facing product (facebook.com) and then pushed down into the stack. The issue with that is that facebook.com and other Facebook products are based on leaky abstractions. They don't just sit on top of the Facebook platform. They can do things with the social graph that no 3rd party application can do. This is where Facebook can have an unfair advantage, and why people are worried about building on top of them. The good thing is that Facebook is working on sealing off the abstraction barrier between their platform and their products. Look at the evolution of their API's. MUCH better social applications are going to pop up once we can all build the same user-facing products that Facebook can build. The great thing is that it's in their best interest. Facebook is much more powerful as Windows than as MS Office.

pg 16y ago

They seem sensitive to this concern. One of the points Bret made at the event was that they're changing things to ensure your users really are yours.

9oliYQjP 16y ago
FB just bought ChaiLabs who responded by "pausing" their beta API. My first thought (well after thinking "crap, there goes all my work") was that they wanted to absorb the ChaiLabs API into the FB platform. So, while they might seem sensitive to the concern, I'm not quite sure it's mitigating the very real "walled garden"/AOL quagmire.