CenterNetworks Launches CN Platform 3.25

I am very excited to announce that early on Thursday morning, CN Platform 3.25 will be made live. The press event will be held at Central Park so that we can have as many people as possible attend. I will be following the Google rule, so no cameras or video will be allowed. Each of you will be able to build apps on this platform - and the first two will be a top 47 list and a blogger tattle-taler. And before anyone asks, this is a closed platform! No OpenID here mister! Eventually we hope to offer scholarships to CNuniv 4.1 so each of you can learn to create award-winning apps on the new CN Platform 3.25 but we don't want any mulligans. So get to the park early! CN is now the first blog to offer a developer platform. "First."

All kidding aside, what's up with everyone creating a platform these days? First Facebook, now MySpace and then unconfirmed reports say Google in November. LinkedIn (are they still alive?) is rumored to have a platform I think in '08.  Oh and don't worry if you live outside the U.S., Richard has a scoop on Bebo offering a platform as well.

Mike noted, "Platform competition is great for developers, but it also means they need to create and maintain separate code for each platform they choose to play on." This reminds me of the xbox/ps3/wii/pc console video game wars. I believe what we will see is the "platforms" get exclusives on the apps that work well on their system.

Developers like building on Facebook because it's the sexy product now (mostly cuz of SV hype). Will anyone want to build on MySpace? I am guessing some of the larger apps will, but the large herd won't head over there. MySpace will spend money to entice developers over.

Do we need all of these developer platforms? Heck yea. Do we need an open system to access them all? Heck yea. Will the zit popper app on Facebook work with the zit popper app on Myspace/Google?

You see, had LinkedIn made the correct chess moves, they would have released a business platform - could have been the next SalesForce. Can they still do it? Sure, but they need to move - this is the Internet people, not the weekly Pennysaver.

And while I do believe we need these developer platforms, we don't need any more of the apps that Kara notes in her Children's Hour post. The ability to latch onto a top social network can create both innovation and new streams of opportunity and I for one welcome it.