I wrote the original that Jamieson is commenting on. He clearly "gets it" and I was going to say "amen" to his post until I got to the part about how Facebook

I wrote the original that Jamieson is commenting on. He clearly "gets it" and I was going to say "amen" to his post until I got to the part about how Facebook and Apple did a public API first. They didn't. Instead they focused on end user value first (the app) and THEN once they had traction they exposed APIs publicly (the platform). There are tons of examples of this formula working, but very few (if any!) examples of pure platforms/APIs being massively successful (dev tools & frameworks don't count). Please read this for more of my perspective on this point http://ceklog.kindel.com/2011/08/24/be-either-an-app-or-a-platform-not-both/ http://ceklog.kindel.com/2011/08/24/be-either-an-app-or-a-pl...