I must break you

Finally got around to reading Dalton Caldwell’s letter to Mark Zuckerberg. If you are in the social software business you should too.

I can relate because I’ve been there - quite recently as a matter of fact. I won’t name names but it sounds like ‘sh*tter’.

Caldwell captures the essence of the challenge for developers like him, but also for the big social ‘platform’ providers.

Once you start down the slippery-slope of messing with developers and users, I don’t have any confidence you will stop.

I believe that future social platforms will behave more like infrastructure, and less like media companies. I believe that a number of smaller, interoperable social platforms with a clear, sustainable business models will usurp you. These future companies will be valued at a small fraction of what Facebook and Twitter currently are. I think that is OK. Platforms are judged by the value generated by their ecosystem, not by the value the platforms directly capture.

He’s absolutely correct, and if history isn’t exactly repeating itself, it’s at least rhyming.

I spent many years in and around the ecosystem of former platform juggernaut Microsoft (believe it or not, there was a time - not long ago - when Microsoft was not only a but the dominant force in technology. Yes, I’m that old…). When Microsoft was clubbing companies like IBM, DEC & Novell (again, I’m old) it was specifically because of the loyalty they had engendered from their developer ecosystem.

And when they started competing with that ecosystem in the mid-late ‘90’s, it was the beginning of the end (although my friend Ray Wang, among others, has been asserting that they are belatedly recognizing the errors of their ways).

For a more current example, take a look at the IOS vs. Android market - without 3rd-party developer support, it doesn’t matter how good your phone is. 

The biggest challenge facing Facebook and Twitter right now is that, because of the pressure being placed on them by the financial community, their need to monetize - directly - prevents them from having the time or the ability to cultivate the 3rd-party-developer ecosystem they need to establish their social platforms as dominant.

In many ways, it’s nice to be Zuck - but I’m not sure I’d want to be him right now. Even if he wants to be a good guy and cultivate Dalton and others, he can’t.

Whose hands does this play into right now? My money’s on Google. 

Letter From Alexander Graham Bell : 1915

classic retake on the Zuckerberg letter

h/t @howardlindzon

gbattle:

American Telephone & Telegraph Company was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected.

We think it’s important that everyone who invests in AT&T understands what this mission means to us, how we make decisions…

Venture Verite: The Facebook IPO: too little, too late.

beautifully said by tdagres - read the whole thing:

Not so many Years ago, 1970’s to 2000, companies such as Cisco, Intel, Apple, Starbucks, Home Depot, and Federal Express would go public and the vast majority of their appreciation would be after the IPO.  Small Investors were able to enjoy this value creation.  Naturally there was a risk of losing money.   Of course some companies acted badly and people lost money.  Without risk there is lifted upside.  They are two sides of the same coin.  But a lot of people changed their lives by making smart investments in a host of great little companies that became big, valuable companies.  Today, this investment opportunity doesn’t exist.  Investing in great little Companies is limited to Institutional Investors and rich people.  That’s not the way it should be in a Country that prides itself on freedom, opportunity and equality. 

So the notion that the Government knows best and is effective at helping Citizens invest and manage their wealth is debatable at best.  In a free Country that is characterized by opportunity and freedom, protecting School Teachers, Plumbers and Bartenders from investing in high-growth companies seems counter-productive.  I am in favor of protecting the Public from wrong-doing and bad intentions but not at the current expense.  Preventing the average person from access to the massive value creation that is occurring before IPOs is limiting upward mobility and keeping small investors small.

Twitter vs. Facebook - Simplicity vs. Complexity

I love the direction that Twitter is going in, which is diametrically-opposed to what Facebook is doing. I expressed my thoughts on the latter on Focus.com yesterday.

Obviously, what network we use for what communication depends on a number of factors, but Twitter’s simplicity, while sometimes limiting, still seems to draw me there much more frequently these days.

‘Timeline’ does just the opposite…

Facebook is adding more features that could complicate things for the users it already has, while Twitter is focusing on making it simpler to use for “everyone”.

Source: thenextweb.com

The future is about the platform, and will be driven by control freaks

Finally read through this rant that a number of friends sent over yesterday, and a few thoughts spring to mind:

  • In a few years, we will be speaking of Jeff Bezos in the same hushed tones that we speak of Steve Jobs. Perhaps we should be today.
  • I suspect that Google management ‘gets it’ more and is less far behind than this one frustrated engineer thinks. (but then again, I’m not on the inside and he is, so what do I know?) I also wonder how much of a ‘mistake’ the release of this rant was, but it’s quite amusing that it was released (mistake or not) on Google+.
  • Culture - clearly - matters. And for all that ‘open, collaborative’ cultures are celebrated, control freaks like Jobs and Bezos seem to have some distinct advantages in delivering experiences that drive the types of businesses that are most successful in capturing fanatical customer loyalty.

Worth a read - thought-provoking stuff.

Stowe Boyd: Facebook Is The New Yahoo? No, Facebook Is The New AOL.

agree completely 

stoweboyd:

Mike Elgan makes a case for Facebook’s future: becoming obsolete, sidelined, and non-innovative. He looks at the recent efforts of Facebook to copy features of Twitter and Google+ and suggests that Facebook is the new Yahoo:

Mike Elgan, Why Facebook is the New Yahoo

I don’t think Facebook…

(via stoweboyd)