"Thirteen years ago I wrote a piece entitled What is a Platform? Perhaps it should be amended to say that if you need the approval of the platform vendor to ship an app, then it isn't a platform. It's an integrity thing. The idea that it's a platform should mean no individual or company has the power to turn you off."

I don't usually agree with geniuses, I'm 80% practical 20% analytical. This time though, I agree completely with Mr. Winer on the Platform issue. A platform can serve many functions sometimes in ways the originator never expected. The computer itself was created to take count right? Now you can do any and everything imaginable with it. That's a platform. A "stage" that allows one to provide a function or a way to express oneself. Ultimately, music is a platform, Math is a platform and life is a platform.

But is the Ipod a platform? No, like Dave said, not right now. At the moment The ipod does only what APPLE wants it to do. You can put Linux on it but only if you have an older version, the thorny closed Ipod garden does not play well with others, just Itunes. Anything that allows you to do it's original purpose and other things, can be a platform.

How about twitter? Didn't they have an original purpose of just giving someone someone else's status? I don't think that was it but that's it now. Devs have turned twitter into an IM client, a RSS Feeder, a promotional tool and other things. I'm bummed they shut down the XMPP feature but that was probably done to curtail developers... That right there tells me Twitter is NOT a platform, just a flexible program. What do you think?

Technorati Tags: dave winer, ipod, itunes, twitter, linux, tech
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/14/of-course-youll-keep-developing-for...