4 ms·

On Platforms

7 points by twampss 18y ago

thwarted 18y ago
"Still, it can be worth it because there are a few mitigating factors. For one, their interest and yours are usually at least somewhat aligned. Facebook’s success is in no small part due to their platform." I'm not sure that I'd put Facebook and Twitter (the reason the original post that Matt is responding to was written) in the same group when it comes to figuring out which star to hitch your wagon to. I agree, you can be reasonably confident of your assessment of Facebook's goals and success being aligned with yours. Facebook is also large enough that any one developer or group of developers are an extremely minor nuisance to them, in terms of the size of their total user base and the kinds of things they need to deal with on a day to day basis. As Facebook grows their user base, your app can grow. Twitter has a history of user base growth that correlates with an increase in performance problems (either downtime or seemingly arbitrary limits, aka bad scalability); does Facebook? Twitter has a lot of users, but it's barely comparable to the size of Facebook. With Facebook, you are also more dependent on their platform, integrated extremely close to it. With Twitter, your app runs on your own domain because twitter doesn't provide any significant kind of UI integration -- because of this, twitter the platform is more at risk of _losing_ users (as they visit other domains) because of your app. In order to use Facebook apps, you have to be on Facebook. Additionally, most third-party twitter apps are _extensions_ of twitter, that make up for lack of features or otherwise serious deficiencies of twitter (this is especially the case because twitter has a record of _removing_ features as their method of dealing with scaling). Facebook is much closer to being a company and service that provides infrastructure, even though the actual things that you can build on that infrastructure are relatively limited (due to things like their TOS and privacy policy). Facebook seems to have a vested interest in ensuring that your third-party service continues to work on their platform, because _your_ app potentially keeps people coming to the site. This is not necessarily the case with twitter. You can't tell what twitter is going to change that limits you and your project in terms of growth or success. Facebook seems to make decisions in the context of what their users want (especially after beacon), twitter seems to be shooting in the dark. And everything I've said above about Facebook applies equally well to the iPhone. Facebook and the iPhone become more popular when people create and use third-party extensions. Third-party extensions seem to threaten twitter. And a threatened entity is one that strikes with force, not one that nurtures. Really the message is * be cautious when deciding which platforms to use * don't try to do everything yourself, but don't be entirely dependent either * Diversify, man can not surive on one platform alone; this also increases your reach * Be aware of the non-technical influences on the platform's continued success and existence

7 points by twampss 18y ago

"Still, it can be worth it because there are a few mitigating factors. For one, their interest and yours are usually at least somewhat aligned. Facebook’s success is in no small part due to their platform." I'm not sure that I'd put Facebook and Twitter (the reason the original post that Matt is responding to was written) in the same group when it comes to figuring out which star to hitch your wagon to. I agree, you can be reasonably confident of your assessment of Facebook's goals and success being aligned with yours. Facebook is also large enough that any one developer or group of developers are an extremely minor nuisance to them, in terms of the size of their total user base and the kinds of things they need to deal with on a day to day basis. As Facebook grows their user base, your app can grow. Twitter has a history of user base growth that correlates with an increase in performance problems (either downtime or seemingly arbitrary limits, aka bad scalability); does Facebook? Twitter has a lot of users, but it's barely comparable to the size of Facebook. With Facebook, you are also more dependent on their platform, integrated extremely close to it. With Twitter, your app runs on your own domain because twitter doesn't provide any significant kind of UI integration -- because of this, twitter the platform is more at risk of _losing_ users (as they visit other domains) because of your app. In order to use Facebook apps, you have to be on Facebook. Additionally, most third-party twitter apps are _extensions_ of twitter, that make up for lack of features or otherwise serious deficiencies of twitter (this is especially the case because twitter has a record of _removing_ features as their method of dealing with scaling). Facebook is much closer to being a company and service that provides infrastructure, even though the actual things that you can build on that infrastructure are relatively limited (due to things like their TOS and privacy policy). Facebook seems to have a vested interest in ensuring that your third-party service continues to work on their platform, because _your_ app potentially keeps people coming to the site. This is not necessarily the case with twitter. You can't tell what twitter is going to change that limits you and your project in terms of growth or success. Facebook seems to make decisions in the context of what their users want (especially after beacon), twitter seems to be shooting in the dark. And everything I've said above about Facebook applies equally well to the iPhone. Facebook and the iPhone become more popular when people create and use third-party extensions. Third-party extensions seem to threaten twitter. And a threatened entity is one that strikes with force, not one that nurtures. Really the message is * be cautious when deciding which platforms to use * don't try to do everything yourself, but don't be entirely dependent either * Diversify, man can not surive on one platform alone; this also increases your reach * Be aware of the non-technical influences on the platform's continued success and existence