Apponomics

Yesterday I tweeted the news of the newly opened Google Apps Marketplace, but I feel that I need to blog about this. This, I feel, is important for us all to understand, because the future of business and technology is being defined – and redefined – in and by online advancements.

One of the many things I love about the Web 2.0 world is it’s direct and natural resemblance to the real world. Web 2.0 – like the real world is all about sharing, honesty, transparency, and all those feel-good things. In the real world, no man can live alone. No man is an island, as they say. We need to connect, collaborate, and help each other to build a society. Everyone is important. The famous NASA story comes to mind. One of the cleaning ladies at NASA was asked what she does, she said: “I send people to space.” Now that is a profound understanding of common purpose and vision.

In the Web 2.0 world collaboration is fundamental. There is no surviving without it. If you want to “go it alone” in this space, you’re going to go nowhere slowly. Successful online companies (like Google, Facebook, and Twitter) have realised this. They’ve realised that they have to allow collaboration into and of their products, in order to provide more value to end users. This is not an easy thing to do – it is to some level a relinquishing of control.

If you’ve ever been on Facebook (who hasn’t!), you’ve at one time or another used an Application, an App as it is commonly known. There are Apps for everything, obviously the gaming Apps – like Farmville (reporting 83, 755, 953 monthly active users) – are very famous. There are Apps in all sorts of categories – Business, Education, Entertainment, etc. You can find a full directory of Facebooks Apps here.

Facebook wouldn’t be Facebook without the Apps. So picture Facebook as a big company in a big building. The company is theirs. The building is theirs. But they’ve opened up little side doors all around the building, to allow other companies (the App developers) to have access to their users. It’s a Win-Win-Win situation. Facebook wins because their users have a more enriched experience. The App developers win because they have access to millions of people. And the end user wins because we have a better experience on Facebook.

These little side doors are called APIs. An API is an Application Programming Inteface.

Apple has done the same with the iPhone. Apps really make the iPhone. And there’s an App for virtually anything. See the official Apple directory here. Some Apps are free, and some carry a price tag. Prices are very affordable though. Ranging from $0.99 to just a few dollars. App developers have already made a fortune selling millions of Apps in the Apple App Store. The Apple iPad is going to be released in a few months, and already there are Apps being created for it.

There are so many Twitter Apps available. TweetDeck, Tweetie, and Twhirl allow you to monitor and send tweets. Apps like Twitpic allow you to send photos on Twitter. It’s very interesting that the Twitpic founder was interview by Andrew Warner on Mixergy.com recently, and he said that last year he was offered over $10 million for his company. He didn’t sell, of course. What’s more interesting is that Twitpic doesn’t have offices. The founder works from home, and his parents also work for him – from their home, and he has also employed another developer – which he hasn’t even met yet, and who also works remotely. Yep, that’s how drastically the business world is changing.

If you look at the homepage of this website, you’ll see our Flickr photos displayed. This is an example of WordPress using the Flickr API.

The examples of API usage are endless, and it’s going to grow. To understand this dynamic of mass collaboration, I really recommend the book Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony D Williams.

It says:

Even ardent competitors are collaborating on path-breaking scientific initiatives that accelerate discovery in their industries

and…

McEwen saw things differently. He realized the uniquely qualified minds to make new discoveries were probably outside the boundaries of his organization, and by sharing some intellectual property he could harness the power of collective genius and capability. In doing so he stumbled successfully into the future of innovation, business, and how wealth and just about everything else with be created.

I suggest you buy this book. It’s well worth the read if this sort of thing is of interest to you.

The latest spark in the App world is the opening of the Google Apps Marketplace.

Google says:

More than 2 million businesses have adopted Google Apps over the last three years, eliminating the hassles associated with purchasing, installing and maintaining hardware and software themselves.

We’ve found that when businesses begin to experience the benefits of cloud computing, they want more. We’re often asked when we’ll offer a wider variety of business applications — from accounting and project management to travel planning and human resources management. But we certainly can’t and won’t do it all, and there are hundreds of business applications for which we have no particular expertise.

In recent years, many talented software providers have embraced the cloud and delivered a diverse set of features capable of powering almost any business. But too often, customers who adopt applications from multiple vendors end up with a fractured experience, where each particular application exists in its own silo. Users are often forced to create and remember multiple passwords, cut and paste data between applications, and jump between multiple interfaces just to complete a simple task.

Today, we’re making it easier for these users and software providers to do business in the cloud with a new online store for integrated business applications. The Google Apps Marketplace allows Google Apps customers to easily discover, deploy and manage cloud applications that integrate with Google Apps. More than 50 companies are now selling applications across a range of businesses…

Watch this interesting video to see how easy it is to use the Google Apps Marketplace:

Photo credit: cambodia4kidsorg