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Facebook Gets It, Becoming the Web OS: Microsoft 2.0

Facebook “gets it” in a way that MySpace, record labels, and countless other technical/social troglodytes don’t: if you own the platform, you own the industry. And if you own the industry, you get a cut of it all.

For background, see: TechCrunch,
CenterNetworks (recap), Fortune, and a million others captured on TechMeme.

Here’s my conjecture:

Facebook wants to be the next Microsoft.

Think about it: Microsoft owned the software platform on which the last 2.5 decades of computing has been done, and has profited ridiculously. Facebook is building the next generation platform - the apocryphal Web OS - by recreating the Microsoft environment from the eighties:

1. Create the platform. (its even called Facebook Platform)
2. Reach out to developers, make it easier or more profitable to build on your platform. (facebook is hitting both of these)
3. Let the users get hooked on apps developed on the platform.
4. Watch the platform spawn a user-driven ecosystem.
5. Keep users isolated; let them see the benefits, not the plumbing. (windows vs. linux?)
6. Profit!

Consider what would have happened in the OS market if Microsoft had restricted MS-DOS to only Microsoft applications, or selectively told large, popular vendors they couldn’t run apps on DOS (hello MYSPACE). The first open alternative would have put MS-DOS in the ground. Note too that this is not a discussion of technical superiority: lord only knows, Microsoft’s code has its issues, and the do-what-you-will approach to developers has caused millions of problems - but the open-ness, and ability for anyone to code anything made it the most approachable for every stakeholder in the PC value chain.

IMHO, Facebook is heading towards the same success and was prescient in turning down Yahoo!.

facebook, microsoft, myspace, platform yahoo

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