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> If your business is built entirely on someone else's ecosystem there are two possible outcomes: > 1. You fail or have meager success; I don't know why peopl

by pbiggar 16y ago

> If your business is built entirely on someone else's ecosystem there are two possible outcomes: > 1. You fail or have meager success; I don't know why people keep repeating this fallacy. There is no shortage of counter-examples, the most obvious being Zynga (hell, the homepage has a story about Angry Birds' massive success _right now_, which is another example).

cletus 16y ago
> There is no shortage of counter-examples, the most obvious being Zynga And if you don't think Zynga is at risk from a change of policy by Facebook you're kidding yourself. It's a gamble. A huge gamble. Zynga may in fact be large enough now to survive war with Facebook but they'd be savaged and greatly diminished by it (IMHO). Look no further than the move to Facebook Credits [1] to see who really wields the power in this relationship. Facebook has exacted a 30% cut, forced on app developers (interestingly I haven't seen quite the same outrage at this as I have about iOS subscription changes). [1]: http://www.allfacebook.com/zynga-facebook-credit-2010-09 http://www.allfacebook.com/zynga-facebook-credit-2010-09
- kmfrk 16y ago
  Indeed, Zynga almost split from Facebook; they had the fortune of being equally valuable to Facebook and could, perhaps, exist on their own. Twitter don't think of third-party apps as any benefit to them, whereas Zynga was a boon to Facebook.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- pbiggar 16y ago
  Of course there's a risk, but that doesn't mean its a bad idea. I would say a great deal of the companies in the world are somehow at the mercy of the fates, in a way similar to Zynga. A bus stop moves, and your convenience store no longer gets traffic for example. Lockheed Martin has one major customer - what would happen if the DoD arbitrarily changed the rules for them? Every tech company relies on Google and Twitter for marketing and traffic, what if they got caught it some algorithmic change and stopped getting search traffic? And so what - there's risk everywhere, but there's opportunity too. At the risk of getting screwed, Zynga carved a $200m a year business. And now what? They get 30% less? A nice problem to have.
  - dtby 16y ago
    And now what? They get 30% less? A nice problem to have. No, it's not. Ever.
    - pbiggar 16y ago
      I think you misunderstand the meaning of "A nice problem to have". It's like when you have so many users that things start to fall over. Basically that millions of people want to have the same problem you have.
ThomPete 16y ago
besides Zynga what other example on Facebook are there?

by pbiggar 16y ago

cletus 16y ago

> There is no shortage of counter-examples, the most obvious being Zynga And if you don't think Zynga is at risk from a change of policy by Facebook you're kidding yourself. It's a gamble. A huge gamble. Zynga may in fact be large enough now to survive war with Facebook but they'd be savaged and greatly diminished by it (IMHO). Look no further than the move to Facebook Credits [1] to see who really wields the power in this relationship. Facebook has exacted a 30% cut, forced on app developers (interestingly I haven't seen quite the same outrage at this as I have about iOS subscription changes). [1]: http://www.allfacebook.com/zynga-facebook-credit-2010-09 http://www.allfacebook.com/zynga-facebook-credit-2010-09

kmfrk 16y ago
Indeed, Zynga almost split from Facebook; they had the fortune of being equally valuable to Facebook and could, perhaps, exist on their own. Twitter don't think of third-party apps as any benefit to them, whereas Zynga was a boon to Facebook.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
pbiggar 16y ago
Of course there's a risk, but that doesn't mean its a bad idea. I would say a great deal of the companies in the world are somehow at the mercy of the fates, in a way similar to Zynga. A bus stop moves, and your convenience store no longer gets traffic for example. Lockheed Martin has one major customer - what would happen if the DoD arbitrarily changed the rules for them? Every tech company relies on Google and Twitter for marketing and traffic, what if they got caught it some algorithmic change and stopped getting search traffic? And so what - there's risk everywhere, but there's opportunity too. At the risk of getting screwed, Zynga carved a $200m a year business. And now what? They get 30% less? A nice problem to have.
- dtby 16y ago
  And now what? They get 30% less? A nice problem to have. No, it's not. Ever.
  - pbiggar 16y ago
    I think you misunderstand the meaning of "A nice problem to have". It's like when you have so many users that things start to fall over. Basically that millions of people want to have the same problem you have.

ThomPete 16y ago

besides Zynga what other example on Facebook are there?