Recently, the Flickr Uploadr tool for Windows stopped working on my computer. The Flickr forums were no help, and I didn't want to spend all day uploading the 4 or 5 pictures in my set. So I searched around a little and found an alternative: the Flickr Importr. This tool, apparently by an independent developer, let me upload my photos in no time. Even better, it allowed me to specify the tags and visibility for each picture. I highly recommend it.
The interesting thing about the Importr is that it's but one of a galaxy of third-party tools built on the published Flickr APIs. There's even a site devoted to rating some of the best at The Great Flickr Tools Collection. And all this for a company that's fairly new and not nearly the leader in its space. Years ago, tools like this were built to new Microsoft APIs, but it seems that more and more the innovation is occurring "in" the network. The rise of Web mash-ups is well-documented, but that's more about combining existing Web tools than about creating new value around a single site. On the other hand, applications like those available for Flickr, Google, and salesforce.com are built specifically to inhabit the firmament created by a single vendor. And that I think makes them different than mash-ups. These captive developers are strengthening the ecosystems around their core vendors. All successful platform vendors do this, but it's interesting to see how fast it happens with published Web APIs.
We're still at a phase where developers will build to a Web API because it's available and they can build a something neat in a weekend. But over the long term, the ability to rapidly promulgate a platform among the development community will have huge implications. Salesforce.com really understands this, and is creating incentives for ISVs to build on their platform. One of the most important is that it will speed the platform adoption cycle and make it much harder for a platform to remain dominance. Intertwined with this is the idea that using a Web API allows developers to operate at a significantly higher level of abstraction than even the most advanced toolkits. I'll write more about this topic in coming weeks.
NOR vs. NAND (vs DRAM)???
Posted by: Mak | November 15, 2005 at 09:18 PM