Platformness, part two

I recently claimed that a true platform has to protect it's developers from (ridiculous) claims of third parties (indemnification), the same is of course try in the opposite direction:

When an ecosystem around this platform evolves that adds new and important features to this platform, the platform itself should not step in and re-create those add-ons.

Current (counter-) example: Twitter just added their own photo sharing service, thus rendering e Twitpics and Yfrogs obsolete... who were instrumental in Twitter's success during the last years.

In other words: a platform shall not compete with (or against) its developers.
I'd like to call this quality trust.

Platformness

The recent (if not still ongoing)  Lodsys v. Apple fight over patent infringement around in-app purchase revealed another important criteria for something to be a platform: indemnification.

Apple (or any platform provider) has to protect developers for their platform from such claims - whether they are justified or - as in this case - just patent trolls.

For a true platform this must never be burdened on the developers.

Hope Google/Android will follow Apple's example.

Vuvuzelas and the platformness of the iPhone

I guess by now everyone knows the Vuvuzelas, those fan instruments / noise creation devices of the soccer worldcup finals 2010 in South Africa. I will not rant about them here... just report a nice observation.

There is a Vuvuzela app[1] for the iPhone/iPod which creates the sound of a Vuvuzela.

Granted, not the most useful app - but fun to annoy friends an colleagues.

But the mere existence of said app, which went viral within a couple of days only, proves to me that the iPhone with its app store is a serious platform for SW developers - as well as a serious marketing vehicle.

To me, the Vuvuzela app has proven the "platformness" of the iPhone & appstore


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[1] actually there are several of those