Platforms

It’s been a few weeks now since I made it out to EMC World and attended the 2012 Data Scientist Summit. My purpose at EMC World was to get myself schooled on a couple of key technologies that we use, Hadoop and Greenplum. I build out and work to optimize the clusters that we run. Unfortunately this year was pretty light on the nitty gritty of either of those technologies, I did manage to walk away with some useful knowledge.

One of the key things that happened to me at the conference was running into Phil Simon. At the Data Scientist Summit he was involved in pretty good talk at the table and it wasn’t until I got back later and did a little googling that I came across the book he wrote, The Age of the Platform. The book interested me because the previous company I worked at (Universal Press Syndicate/uclick) had built it’s success upon a platform, in my opinion. Additionally at Adknowledge I believe a large part of the success they have is built upon a couple of key platforms.  I burned through about half the book on my wait at the airport and my plane ride home. Work, kids, work, workouts, work and home improvement activities have kept me busy enough that I haven’t had a chance to get through the rest of it. I like the manner in which he writes, the litany of examples cited in order to back up his points and plain speak are refreshing. I’m just getting to the point where he delves into the platforms of the different companies he goes over (Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google) and I’m interested to see if they fit into my concept of the platforms I believe I have seen.

At uclick what I believe their power platform is predated my attachment to the company by many years. In fact I think the core platform they have dates back to the founders of the company. What they created in the 70s melded excellent authors, superb artists, talented content creators, an intelligent editorial staff and an ability to get that collaboration to clients on time. In any company how you move the output of smart people to be used by consumers is a key to victory, and they were doing it well. During my tenure there from 2000 to almost 2010 I witnessed a massive change, in that the manner in which they monetized on this platform collapsed, the degree and rapidity at which the tried and true business model eroded surprised many. One of the largest attributing factors I believe was the advent of massive amounts of free content and the scrambles that followed to find new ways to make money. The internet is still figuring out how to make real money off of real people instead of screaming into the void . Once they figure that one out it will be realized that real people read real content and I imagine the value proposition will come back for this conent. If they’ve kept that core platform in good repair and manage to keep with it they’ll be sitting pretty to reap the rewards.

At Adknowledge there are a variety of platforms employed. One which I think is interesting, and one of the key reasons I joined, was the way they target advertisement. It’s not based on context, for example: a pet supply ad on site about cats. It is instead based on what we can derive the consumer wants are based upon the information we have. At the time I joined in the tail end of 2009 you didn’t see other companies doing this. Only recently has it started to permeate the mainstream places such as Amazon and Google, where they figure out you have interest in a product and throw ads at you based on that product. This type of advertising I believe in the end services the consumer and the advertiser in a much better manner than the contextual advertising that is the norm.

As I’m able to read more of Phil’s book it will be interesting to see how he breaks down the platforms of those internet giants and see if they match in part to what I see as the platform of the companies that I worked at.