Facebook as a platform

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Seth Goldstein has an interesting post in which he recalls a conversation he had with Brad Silverberg, the lead developer of Windows 95. Silverberg argued that, to succeed, a platform needed to have three things:

  • wide distribution
  • application developers making money
  • good tools

    • It’s clear that Windows 95 had all three.

    Goldstein then applies this test to Facebook:

    * Wide distribution? YES
    * Application developers making money? NO (at least not yet…)
    * Good tools? YES

    So, the question for establishing Facebook’s value as a platform is no longer whether Facebook itself can make money but whether its developers can do so.

    Hmmm…. I don’t see the “good tools” for Facebook. Wonder what Seth thinks they are.