Could Facebook Become The Next Microsoft?
- 20th July , 2007 by scott in -> misc
- 0 comments
Amongst all the noise today over Facebook’s acquisition of Parakey, little has been said on what the acquisition means for Facebook in the broader sense. Robert Scoble says that Facebook is the new data black hole, noting that many of his favorite apps are now appearing on Facebook. Facebook is starting to become the one stop shop for content and interaction, be it through feeds, blog creation, image uploading and just plain ol’ social networking. Although it’s not the market leader yet, there is no argument that Facebook is rapidly growing and more and more people are using it.
Facebook v Microsoft: the early years
If you’re a member of Generation X, you’ll know the history; if you are younger you may not. Once upon a time the Microsoft Borg was not as almighty as it is today. Back in the 80’s consumers had a smorgasbord of choice; this was a time when PC’s ran DOS and were not in every home. Platforms ranged from the Commodore machines, through to Atari (which at the time dominated the music creation business), through to Apple. Operating systems were as diverse as the computers that ran them. Then somewhere in the 1990’s this changed. The reason was Microsoft Windows. Windows was a proprietary platform for which you could build things on, and developers did just that. What was once a fairly niche offering evolved into a platform that provided something for everyone. By the mid 1990’s, aside from a small number of Apple fans, Windows PC’s simply killed most of the competition.
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