Last week I had the pleasure of attending O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 EXPO in New York City. In addition to meeting many interesting folks and letting them know about eBay’s developer platform, I also got to give a presentation on platform wars. In it I explore some notable platform wars, explain where the wars come from, pitfalls of being caught in one, and how to identify bad platforms overall.
Here’s the session notes and presentation:
Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD. VHS vs. Beta. PC vs. Mac. AC vs. DC. As long as platforms have been a valuable resource, wars have been fought to control them. Eventually, either through trickery, persistence, or legislation, all wars come to an end. By understanding these wars, old and new, we’ll be better prepared to survive the next.
It is an incredibly belated comment…But I wanted to thank you for posting this for those of us who were unable to attend.
I agree entirely with the content and am pleased that there is an increased focus on the platform as a method of creating value for all participants. That is the true test of platform efficacy (ala recurring revenue for those who build on eBay platform).
By: Tyler Hannan on October 29, 2008
at 7:58 pm