Published on Read/Write Web at 1:31 AM

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Platforms on the Web are Platforms on a Platform

The web as a platform is something we have written aboutquite a lotover the years here at Read/WriteWeb. Over the weekend, Marc Andreessen put up a lengthy post attempting to sort out the idea of an "Internet platform." Andreessen writes, "One of the hottest of hot topics these days is the topic of Internet platforms, or platforms on the Internet ... 'platform' is turning into a central theme of our industry and one that a lot of people want to think about and talk about. However, the concept of "platform" is also the focus of a swirling vortex of confusion -- lots of platform-related concepts, many of them highly technical, bleeding together; lots of people harboring various incompatible mental images of what's about to happen in our industry as a consequence of various platforms."

He goes on to identify three types of platforms:

1. Access API - where data is pulled from a service and reconstituted to create something new or add value to something else (think Flickr, or Google Maps)
2. Plug-in API - where developers plug their applications directly into the platform (think Facebook, Firefox, or, well, Google Maps again (Mapplets))
3. Runtime Environment - like a plug-in API but where code is executed directly on the platform, and the "platform itself handles everything required to run your application on your behalf" (think Andreessen's own Ning, Second Life, or Salesforce.com)...

Published on Read/Write Web at 1:31 AM

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