This weeks reading & Mixi’s walled garden
What is the future of social networks as walled gardens? Steve Rubel ponders the need for social networks to open up in order to become successful over the long term. A social network does not need to be open to be successful. In fact, I prefer if it were closed.
The problem, however, lies in this fact - Facebook gives nothing back to the broader web. A lot of stuff goes in, but nothing comes out. What happens in Facebook, stays in Facebook. As Robert Scoble noted, it’s almost completely invisible to Google. You can share only a limited amount of data on your public page - as he has here. That’s fine for many users, but not all.
You don’t have to give anything to the web to become successful, you especially don’t need to be visible to Google. You just need to make your users happy. Facebook made a great decision when they opened their API to outside developers. Just make sure your users are happy and that they are getting what they want. If AOL and Compuserv had open API’s that allowed small companies to build businesses around their userbase or develop software that worked inside their garden they may still be around. Long term success comes when you create a economy dependant on your businesses success. This is the same reason why Microsoft will continue to be around and why Apple failed to grow during its early, closed API days.
Mixi’s walled garden is a asset but their greatest danger is its closed API. Mixi is fine now because its competitors in Japan are limited. If another player comes into the market and creates a open API, a new economy will develop around that competitor that will quickly erode the companies market share. These small business economies are what drive companies like Amazon, Ebay and in Japan, Yahoo Auctions.
If MySpace Japan is simply a sales and translation force for MySpace USA it won’t be able to compete with Mixi. If MySpace Japan accepts major influence from Softbank, its Japan partner and investor it could pose a danger. However my impression is that unlike Yahoo Japan, Softbank won’t have much sway in platform strategy.
If Mixi opened its API to outside companies it would pretty much eliminate the market for competitors in Japan. On the other hand if it opened up its walled garden it would turn away many of its core users who value their privacy.
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Motivation is weird. I only have a limited amount of it and it expires after a few weeks. Projects that seem exciting become dead boring for no other reason than time. Is it just me?
Here is a explanation of why fiat money works. Its long.
Want to know how to finance a Presidential campaign? It helps if you can charge $175K a month in consulting fees.
June 29th, 2007 at 8:36 am
Not so sure if I agree that theres any need for an open API for Mixi. I think it works so well because its a closed garden and you need an invite to join, its a good parallel with society here (this has been said before).
Japan remains for the most part a silo market rather than a horizontal market. If one wanted to appeal to the 10 million Mixi users, one would have to approach the company. Yahoo auctions killed eBay here API or no. Can you point me to an example of a thriving open API in the Japanese market other than Win32? Particularly a home grown version?
June 29th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Amazon?
You can’t compare the entire Japanese market to the USA market or even the European market 1 to 1. Japan is two years behind most other internet spaces.
Facebook required a invitation to join and that spurred its early growth. Creating a open API doesn’t mean losing the parallel society. It means offering more to it.