Facebook and their advertising partners have begun to step on the toes of some developers. Rachel Rosmarin of Forbes paint a picture of fearful developers that are concerned about Facebook wrecking their business model or at least their opportunity to compete. Dare Obasanjo suggests that this is just a sign that Facebook is becoming a successful platform.
Dare accurately expresses the relationship between the platform owner and application developer: “It is hard to argue that it isn’t better for users” if the functionality provided by new applications become “a native part of the platform or underlying application, however it often leaves the platform developers in a lurch. If the application developer cannot find a new way to add value to the platform then their usefulness to users comes to an end.”
This is a fact of life for application developers on all successful platforms. It is a risk that they must take if they are going to compete. If they become large enough though, the platform may choose to acquire them rather than compete head on. For those applications like Super Wall and similar ones, their application may one day be rendered useless by an upgrade to Facebook’s native wall application.
So should application developers be scared? Definitely. They should be just as scared as most entrepreneurs are when launching a business. Fear is part of the game. If you want to play in this fast paced environment, you are going to have to play smart and play to win. If you build an application which eventually becomes useless, you probably weren’t playing too smart. Am I being to harsh here?
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Yes, I think you're being a bit too harsh. But, I think anyone developing applications for a closed platform, especially FB, is well aware of the risk of obsolescence. My guess is that this is the number one factor that will drive developers to focus development efforts in Open Social and Android.This is funny, if you haven't already seen it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SH9iEn8Jfk
Comment by Nate Too — November 8, 2007 @ 10:23 am
I think you are absolutely right on. This is an age old problem between a platform and application. The general rule is that the platform will generally swallow up applications that are "Too Close" to the platform. The key for an entreprenuer is to inovate a true application rather than a small feature on the platform. Also, I predict that Facebook will eventually write "Killer Apps" for Facebook. This is much like the "Killer Apps" for Windows(Word, Excel & PPT) are written by Microsoft. As an app developer, the key is to understand this and to truely differentiate your offering. It is time for the Facebook application developers to develope real applications rather than trinkets that can easily be replaced.
Comment by Joe J — November 8, 2007 @ 11:13 am
Yes, I think you're being a bit too harsh. But, I think anyone developing applications for a closed platform, especially FB, is well aware of the risk of obsolescence. My guess is that this is the number one factor that will drive developers to focus development efforts in Open Social and Android.
This is funny, if you haven't already seen it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SH9iEn8Jfk
Comment by Nate Too — November 8, 2007 @ 11:23 am
I think you are absolutely right on. This is an age old problem between a platform and application. The general rule is that the platform will generally swallow up applications that are “Too Close” to the platform. The key for an entreprenuer is to inovate a true application rather than a small feature on the platform. Also, I predict that Facebook will eventually write “Killer Apps” for Facebook. This is much like the “Killer Apps” for Windows(Word, Excel & PPT) are written by Microsoft. As an app developer, the key is to understand this and to truely differentiate your offering. It is time for the Facebook application developers to develope real applications rather than trinkets that can easily be replaced.
Comment by Joe J — November 8, 2007 @ 3:13 pm
This has been happening in the Apple world for a long time. Many of the innovations happen outside of the Mac operating systems and suddenly Apple swoops in and destroys the innovator's entire business model (Sherlock, Quicksilver, many more). We respectfully mourn them for a short time — it's appropriate — but in the end, we knew it might happen and the developers did too.
Comment by Rob Giardina — November 8, 2007 @ 4:30 pm
This has been happening in the Apple world for a long time. Many of the innovations happen outside of the Mac operating systems and suddenly Apple swoops in and destroys the innovator's entire business model (Sherlock, Quicksilver, many more). We respectfully mourn them for a short time — it's appropriate — but in the end, we knew it might happen and the developers did too.
Comment by Rob Giardina — November 8, 2007 @ 5:30 pm