Facebook Mania and plugins
February 21st, 2008 by Benjamin KuoThere’s been a lot of startups I’ve seen lately, focused on creating standalone companies around Facebook. The rush to create applications for Facebook reminds me a lot of the plug-in market. For those who aren’t familiar with plug-ins, those are the various software widgets that plug into larger applications — for example, in the photo editing world, for Adobe’s Photoshop.
The plug-in market for Adobe Photoshop is one where there are lots of innovative, cool companies creating software which creates neat visual effects, allows for modification of images, and other great added features to Photoshop. There are dozens and dozens of companies generating plug-ins, but one thing you soon realize — is that they’re mostly small shops, probably profitable, but not really an ideal firm for venture capital.
There are very, very few “platforms” where independent companies can be created which have the opportunity to break out–simply because your growth and market is limited and highly restricted by the platform you attach to. Among the few “platforms” which enable this are things which are very broadly applied (i.e. Sun’s Java language) and industry dominating leaders (Microsoft’s operating systems and some–but not all–of their applications, Oracle databases). For example, Microsoft’s email platform, Microsoft Exchange, is so widely deployed you regularly see companies developing solutions around Exchange who are able to create substantial, and sustainable business. Another effort (stil early) is Salesforce.com, which is trying to create their own ecosystem of indepenent providers with their Force.com program. But, even with well adopted platforms — think the Apple Macintosh — it’s difficult to grow a substantial company out of the confines of that platform. I wonder (and I’d love some examples) if there truly is a Facebook enabled business which can seriously turn into a substantial standalone company.
