platformers

BustedTees, the Web site responsible for that "Prose before Hos" t-shirt that you wore to your English 101 final exam, has announced a Facebook Platform application that offers to split cash revenue with users willing to install it.

The application has soft-launched and is set to launch formally in a few days.

The model here is similar to traditional "affiliate programs" for advertising on Web sites and blogs--and indeed, it's essentially a "Facebookified" version of BustedTees' existing affiliate program. Pimp them on your Facebook profile, and you'll get a cut of the … Read more

Electronic Arts thinks the current gaming business is a quagmire of inefficiency. The solution, according to EA's head of international publishing? An open gaming platform.

...[I]ncompatible consoles made life harder for developers and consumers.

"We want an open, standard platform which is much easier than having five which are not compatible....We're platform agnostic and we definitely don't want to have one platform which is a walled garden."

Funny how different industries are increasingly coming up with the same answer to the inefficiencies that proprietary competition creates: openness. Open source. Open standards. Open competition.… Read more

Here at the Web 2.0 Summit, you can feel the envy that entrepreneurs have for Facebook and the huge lift the company got from opening up its service and making it into a platform that other developers can write for. Many startup CEOs I've talked to lately say they plan to release their product as a platform.

The instinct is good. Businesses based on platforms are more powerful than those based just on products. But there's more to platformizing a company than just publishing a few APIs. If you look at the Web services that became successful … Read more

Five months after Facebook unveiled its platform initiative, the real arms race isn't among developers who want a piece of the action. Now, it's all about other Web companies looking to replicate Facebook's success.

In the past weeks, social networks Tagged, Hi5 and LinkedIn have made it clear they're working on application program interfaces (APIs) for developer platforms much like Facebook's. Rumors have been flying that Facebook's chief rival MySpace.com is working on something similar as well--though it doesn't appear it will be announced this week, as some had thought. (Representatives from … Read more

Business social network LinkedIn is following in Facebook's footsteps and opening up an application programming interface (API) to allow third-party developers to contribute to the site. But Dan Nye, the company's CEO, recently spoke with the New York Times' Saul Hansell and explained that it's going to be limited, in the interest of keeping things professional.

"We're not going to have people sending electronic hamburgers to each other," Nye told the Times, in a not-so-subtle reference to the utter ridiculousness of many Facebook developer applications.

Rather, LinkedIn's platform API will invite developers, who … Read more

Tech gossip blog Valleywag is attempting to counter the TechCrunch-spawned rumor that MySpace.com will be following in Facebook's footsteps and opening up its site to developers.

Sources in touch with the Gawker Media-owned blog allegedly said that MySpace is indeed brewing a developer platform strategy and that the News Corp.-owned social networking site will be making an announcement at next week's Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco--but the two are unrelated.

The announcement, according to Valleywag blogger Megan McCarthy (no relation), will instead deal with MySpace's instant messaging client. Additionally, she wrote, MySpace will … Read more

Have you gotten sick of the word "platform" yet? Sorry.

According to a post on TechCrunch, MySpace.com is planning to follow in Facebook's footsteps and open up a set of application program interfaces (APIs) so that developers can create "MySpace apps" in the vein of Facebook apps.

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington, who apparently got the details from developers who have been consulted on the project, wrote that we may be seeing this as early as next week--potentially at the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco.

More specifically, this is allegedly going to be … Read more

According to an e-mail copied to the CenterNetworks blog, Facebook's much-touted developer grant program may be off to a rocky start. The FBFund initiative is apparently restructuring its application process and is asking that all previous applicants re-submit their materials. Initially, applications were to be submitted via e-mail; now, a submission form is available.

"To make sure that everyone understands the conditions of submitting a grant application, we will not review any materials you have sent via email, and any materials you may have sent have been deleted," the copy-pasted e-mail read. It's apparently to ensure … Read more