Introduction

Mathew Ingram of GigaOM writes a fascinating piece about the increasing tensions among Twitter, Facebook, and their respective ecosystems. But why the bad blood?

It turns out that Facebook and Twitter are closing their platforms more and more. In each case, platforms there were previously open and democratic are now becoming restrictive and closed. StockTwits was just a case in point. Twitter nuked StockTwits with nary a phone call or email to its founder.

The notions of frenemies and coopetition are tricky to navigate.

As Ingram points out, the tension between open and closed it particularly acute these days. Facebook and Twitter started with a more open mind-set and then incrementally closed each platform. As I write in The Age of the Platform, the notions of frenemies and coopetition are tricky ones for smaller companies and developers to navigate.

Simon Says

Bottom line: Those looking for easy answers in The Age of the Platform can keep looking. There are far more tricky questions than simple answers.

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