What is what in the world of social platforms

This article continues our conversation about the new stage in the development of social networks , what kind of revolution is this and why I call it revolutionary. I just want to warn you: after a cheerful “lemonade” today the conversation is very bland - the classification of social platforms.



I am sure that each of us puts his own meaning in the word “social platform”. And this is not surprising. Everything is evolving at such a pace that there is simply no time left for any classification schemes, and even those already compiled, they run the risk of becoming obsolete faster than the first readers will truly understand. And, nevertheless, I would venture to sort it all out ...



So, a social web platform is a software product based on and (possibly) with which a user (group of users) can create a social web space managed by him (them) or a web environment. This target space , in turn, is the basis for the formation of its own (target) social network. Next, we’ll just talk about social platforms or even easier - platforms.



The full version of this note in the iTech Bridge blog provides a classification of platforms according to the criteria:

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• targeting targeted services — blogs, wikis, etc .;

• service delivery - in possession (with open or closed code), on demand, combinations;

• relationships with target spaces - operational (single-purpose, multi-purpose), libraries (universal, group, special), combinations;

• (method) of creating target spaces - programmable, customizable (procedurally, parametrically), complete;

• Transparency - transparent, opaque.



The above classification is illustrated by examples. Thus, we kind of get some sort of table “classification attributes - samples of platforms”.



In this form, the classification scheme, in general, is sufficient for understanding what is being said in our cycle and further determining which platforms exactly determine the revolutionary nature of the situation in the social Internet. However, I want to cite a few additional considerations outlined in the same blog note .



Open Platforms and Open Source



In the general case, when we speak of an open platform, we mean one of two “openness” or some combination of them:



- openness of the code (Open Source) . Borrowing the terminology adopted during testing, we can, accordingly, speak about openness at the “white box” level. We have already mentioned this openness, speaking about platforms “delivered to possession”.

- openness of the software interface , or openness at the “black box” level. As we have already seen, such openness exists (a) in platforms that are customizable at the procedural level, and (b) in platform-group libraries.



With open source (white box) can be supplied as some library platforms, and engines. At the same time, such openness, as a rule, implies “free of charge” of the corresponding product.



In the future, speaking of open platforms, we, if not otherwise stated, will keep in mind openness only in the narrow sense , that is, a platform with an open software interface. It is the appearance of such open platforms that I call a revolutionary phenomenon.



The platform is open in a broad sense if it has an open program interface and is supplied in open source.



Open Social - standard, above all



Returning to Open Social, I must say that openness is not the most important thing here. The most important thing, it seems to me, is that this platform, which is open in a broad sense, is the standard of fact.



As a standard, Open Social for developers:



- autonomous social resources (by the way, for Facebook, including) is a set of requirements, following which they can open the internal platform of their resource in a direction that satisfies the requirements of Open Social

- social applications is a library of program elements, using which you can create applications that work within any resource - an open platform container whose software interface conforms to the requirements of Open Social.



Once again on the transparency of platforms.



What we referred to above as transparent platforms, in English-language sources, is usually called white label platforms. I didn’t think how to translate it more adequately, so I stopped at the time of “transparency”. Transparent can be both an open (in any sense) and closed platform. The main thing is that the social space generated by such a platform does not carry generic “spots” (features) of this platform and at the same time could have its own second-level domain address. In this regard, it can be said that LiveJournal and its similar blog platforms cannot be attributed to a white label, i.e., they are opaque.



It is easy to notice that, practically, any universal library platform can always be classified as transparent. Single-purpose operating platforms (engines), as a rule, are also quite transparent. However, it is difficult to imagine any special library transparent.



If we talk about multi-purpose operating platforms, here we see both opaque type LiveJournal, and transparent type Pingo platform.



The most interesting option for us is the multi-purpose transparent platforms of the open (in the narrow sense) type. It doesn't matter if this openness is supported by libraries like Open Social or in some way specialized. I want to tell about this relatively new direction in the creation of social platforms in a separate article.



About my beloved SaaS



SaaS is the second, along with Open Source, fashionable trend now for the development of software business. And these two areas are largely alternative. And again, as in the case of Open Source, when constructing a classification scheme, I deliberately move away from the mention of SaaS, replacing it with an equivalent term on-demand. True, the reasons here are somewhat different.



The term SaaS, unfortunately, turned out to be overloaded with various interpretations of it. Indeed, if we talk about any web services, then all of them are nothing else than SaaS (software-as-a-service). Although, naturally, no one ever called them that way. Therefore, we, despite the fact that any social resource from the point of view of its end user, of course, is SaaS, we will not always call it that.



In the future, for simplicity, we will refer to the SaaS platforms only transparent operational multipurpose platforms that provide their instrumental services on an “on demand” basis. Like Saleseforce, such platforms are primarily business-oriented and become more and more open. As customers of these platforms (platforms, and not the target spaces generated by them!), Customers usually act as companies or, more precisely, administrators representing their interests.



In other words, transparent instrumental platforms like Ning and Pingo with services delivered on demand will be referred to SaaS, and opaque multi-purpose platforms like Live Journal are not, although all services here are also supplied on demand.



I plan to devote the next article of this cycle to startups: how the revolution of social platforms can affect their organization and business strategy of activities (already published ). It is in this note that I hope to finally explain why I consider the emergence of open platforms a revolutionary phenomenon.



Well, for now, I remind you that the full version of the note that you have just read (with all the necessary links) is in my i Tech Bridge blog .