Your Platform Must be Compelling

by holman on 9/7/2011, 7:58 PM with 6 comments
  • by cek on 9/7/2011, 8:22 PM

    I think this article is poorly named. If it were titled "Your API must be Compelling" it would make sense (but only as much as "if the sun is up it's daytime" makes sense).

    The term platform is way overused and poorly understood.

    When I think of a platform I think of something that enables a virtuous cycle of participation from 3rd parties.

    A virtuous cycle will never be created if there isn't something in the mix that is compelling.

    Very rarely (if ever) is the compelling thing the platform itself.

    It is, instead, almost always some value proposition delivered to end users.

    See my blog post on this subject here: "Be Either an App or a Platform" http://ceklog.kindel.com/2011/08/24/be-either-an-app-or-a-pl... (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2925566)

    Which got some discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2912794

  • by prayag on 9/7/2011, 8:23 PM

    Let me check this for MobileWorks platform:

    Low effort, high reward: You can use MobileWorks' simple API to use humans to do some tasks for you which may not even be possible for complicated AI algorithms. So, check.

    Enable multiple points of value for free The first 100 tasks are free. You can get a lot done with that. So, check.

    Make it accessible MobileWorks is REST-based. Uses simple auth over https and no API key. So, check there too.

    Tooting my own horn aside. I think it comes down to reward/effort ratio. If a programmer can get a lot of reward for limited effort that's great. It he can get little reward for no effort, that's good too. But high reward low efforts works well enough too. I think that's the only metric programmers look at.

  • by probablycorey on 9/7/2011, 8:08 PM

    I'm not so sure about this. Many platforms attract developers without being compelling.

  • by ashrust on 9/7/2011, 9:39 PM

    I don't see how the api key requirement will push devs away. If you have a simple ways to demo the api, like Facebook, Foursquare and YouTube all do, then it's easy to see the output you'll get. Assuming that happens, a key for tracking and preventing (serious) abuse seems necessary. Much harder to add security later as you'll break the apps from original ecosystem members.