DISQUS

great post ..

how about discovery cost (from advertiser perspective) of small sites in high-value niches? Do advertisers really bother buying small lots of inventory? At what volume can a site start expecting advertiser interest on a network like Rev.Sci/RightMedia?

i wonder how much of the sentiment arises from 'platforms' being all the rage these days. i found this article http://venturebeat.com/2008/03/03/is-facebooks-platform-a-strategic-mistake/ to capture well the cons of this philosophy. Part of the Google value is simplicity and consistency. You know you can use it for weather, tickers, FedEx tracking numbers! It is the consistency of functionality that keeps taking people back to Google. Not unlike what keeps McDonalds ticking. A huge part of Google's value proposition is that it simply works! It doesn't ask u to install some custom app that does some special thing well. And if by providing such a platform - google abdicated itself from building useful shortcuts - that would be a very bad move for them. For example - let's say Google could make a choice on building a special book title search result - or leaving it to some application developer. I would argue that it's a negative for Google to leave it to an application developer. A large number of people who could benefit would never install the application. and Google would never become THE place to do a book search.

Even in comparison to Facebook - the most popular applications there are all games. Utilitarian apps are by and large not that popular. And no one considers Facebook THE place to go and write a travel review (numerous travel applications notwithstanding). So extending the suitableness of (a primarily) gaming platform to a utilitarian service is questionable imho.