Platforms, Mashups, and Markets

Yesterday Greg Linden asked When Is A Market Really A Market? He's focused specifically on on-line advertising, but his questions apply equally well to lots of other on-line "markets" as well. So, I believe that right now, we have a marketplace, but it's a nascent marketplace. The thing that gets me so excited, though, is that is so clear where all of this is headed. I claim that these two discussions are actually related by the notion of a platform. The platform is what you must build today in order to create a new on-line market. To be clear, the process goes something like this: 1. Build new "open" platform 2. Get critical mass (this is where mashups start to come in) 3. Add financial incentives, creating a marketplace 4. Profit! That leads me to ask the only unasked question so far. In the Internet of 2006, what's it mean to be (or create) a "platform"? What is a platform? Is one necessary to create a new marketplace online? What do you think, based on the evidence we've seen so far? Jeremy Zawodny's blog. Jeremy is part of the Yahoo search team and frequently posts in the Jeremy Zawodny's blog