Web based platforms - Facebook as a case study.

Facebook is going through a spirited growth period. The fulcrum for this acceleration was the announcement and realization of its new strategy - to be a place for anyone to build applications for social computing. A ‘place’ also known as a platform, in information technology speak. It is an interesting approach and it appears one that is paying dividend in the form of unprecedented numbers of individuals from all demographics signing up for Facebook.

It is a very interesting strategy and certainly not the first time the approach has been taken in the Internet industry. SMB CRM giant Salesforce.com was one of the first to change tack and make a platform play. Facebook is offering a green field for the developers to apply their creative thinking and technical skills to build mini-applications that might be palatable to the user constituency. The organization has effectively created a ‘free’ and talented application development team. What’s more - the developers themselves get the satisfaction of knowing that the applications they are creating have their name brand associated with it, every time a new user signs up for it. We all love our 15 minutes of fame!

So can we expect more of the same from other companies that play in the Internet space and who do not want to be diluted by the myriad of other companies doing the same thing they are? Pulling off the transformation however does seem to require a few key elements -

1. Critical mass- you must have a health user population already visiting and using your site. Facebook as an example, already had 24 million registered users.
2. Strong Infrastructure - you must have a strong technical infrastructure to transform your site into a platform for developers.
3. Simplicity and Support - you must make it easy and seamless for developers to create new applications and upload it onto your site. Facebook does a great job of providing documentation, APIs and help to understand the platform upon which they expect developers to build applications - Facebook Developers.
4. Recognition- you must promote those developers that do a great job of creating a new application and what better way to do so than to use your user constituency to judge how good the application is. How? Total number of ’subscribers’ to the application.
5. Last but not least, Policing- as with any open forum for creating applications, there are going to be those who want to abuse the privilege. Facebook is no exception. The organization must actively and effectively monitor and manage the applications being deployed so that those that hinder the goal of the platform and the interests of users are not released.

So what are the implications of this strategy when applied effectively? It transforms organizations from a ‘me-too’ website, to one that is defining the way in which their space operates. It sets the standard for the way in which we use the Internet and enables developer creativity to push our society to new realms. It is easy to envision this approach being leveraged by other notable web companies -

• I would have loved to be able to go on Expedia and leverage an application that allows me to find friends who have traveled to France and get recommendations on places to stay, eat and see. Or the best options to follow the Tour de France.
• Perhaps an application that leverages LinkedIn - allowing me to figure out what post graduate education options might be useful for me based on the profiles of other users similar to me.
• How about ETRADE offering developers the ability to create applications that will allow users to view financial trading data in new and more innovative ways and charging users to use these tools?
• Any chance that Constant Contact might open its technology up so that developers can build complimentary applications to its widely popular hosted email marketing solutions?

The net result of this strategy is that we as the user community get access to the best and brightest developing applications that make sense to us and that meet our needs. We also get more choice than any one organization can develop on its own and can create an experience that is tailored to our individual preferences. The elusive goal of delivering a ‘personalized user experience’ may soon be more of a reality than ever before.