Top 10 Web platforms 2008 ( 1 )

2008 has witnessed the emergence of new web-based platform, including several large built using open standards. In this final installment of our series of top products of 2008, we selected the top 10 web platforms in the year.

We wrote a lot of time on the platforms for the Web. Web-based platform can be as simple API, like the one provided to twitter, which allows outside developers to use in the company's data. This may be the software and services, such as Amazon Web Services. It can also be full-fledged development platform, such as the iPhone SDK and Adobe AIR. In any case, the platform on the Internet is let people build on top of another product, so we believe that the appropriate way to close our Top Web Products series.

This is the tenth and final post in our series of products beginning in 2008.
Note: Unlike some of our previous lists, we tried to order it under the influence in 2008.

1. iPhone SDK
ReadWriteWeb named Apple, as our BigCo 2008, thanks largely to iPhone platform. IPhone really reached the main audience in 2008, when the 3G iPhone was launched in July, much recognition. But more significant than the phone itself was a simultaneous launch of the applications Apple Store. There were 552 applications for the start and at the time of writing, this had risen to more than 10,000 applications. So in less than 6 months, the number and variety of iPhone Apps has increased significantly. Indeed, it is a load of salt iPhone version of its web-based application - the eventual confirmation of a successful web-based platform.

For many years, now all (including us), it was forecast that next year will be that mobile Internet over the weekend. 2008 Finally, this year - and this is mainly due to the development of the platform iPhone.

2. OpenSocial
OpenSocialNovember was the first anniversary of Google OpenSocial, an open API framework for the social networks and Web sites. During 2008 OpenSocial has received a lot of traction, statistics released in November said that OpenSocial has reached 675 M registered users at the time and 7500 applications.

Most impressive is the list of organizations that have signed on OpenSocial, and actively developing applications for it. This is a high Powered list includes MySpace, AOL, Bebo, hi5, LinkedIn, Nina, Orkut, Yahoo!. Of course, there is still no OpenSocial is Facebook and Microsoft, but at the rate of OpenSocial is ramping up - they may not need them.

3. Adobe AIR
As we noted in our power BigCo of 2008, it was a year in which Adobe's' Rich Internet App strategies have some juicy fruit, with many strong Apps released, which were built using AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime). AIR is a platform that makes it easy to build attractive Internet connected applications that live outside the browser. Last year, we have noted its potential - the air is called the "Apollo" for the greater part of its beta - but in February 2008, AIR was officially opened, and soon we saw a lot of excellent applications emerge. For example, check:
* 6 Adobe AIR Apps checks
* 10 Adobe AIR Apps Bloggers love
* Adobe AIR comes to work: 6 Apps for the Corporate Desktop

We called it our No. 3 Web platform was because he breathed new life into the Rich Internet Apps this year.

4. Twitter API
The importance of twitter in the API for its success this year can not be overstated. The number and diversity of twitter reader customers only surprisingly, not to mention the many other ways to chirp data that is used (for example, e-commerce goals). I must say that twitter there is much idle and many technical failures during the entire year, but despite this he continues to expand its API service. As co-founder Biz Stone chirp ReadWriteTalk said in an interview last September:

"The API was, perhaps most important, or maybe even no doubt the most important thing that we have done with chatter. This has allowed us, in the first place, so that the service is very simple and create a simple API, so that developers can build on top of our infrastructure and to develop ideas that are better than our ideas ...

Consequently, API, which is easily 10 times more traffic than on a site that was very important to us. We've seen some amazing work built on top of it from a tiny mobile applications such as SMS, which has just a timer to set a reminder for the SMS to call mom or something like that to a more detailed visual Rest of chatter as twittervision. com, which shows an animated map of the world, and that makes all the world to twitter. ... [Schebetat] API really was a great success for us, and that is what we want to continue to focus our efforts on, looking forward. "

5. Facebook Platform
Facebook is still becoming more popular throughout 2008, reaching 140 million active users by the end of the year and is growing at a rate of 600,000 users each day. For this reason, we gave him an honorable mention in our best BigCo 2008 positions.

But in terms of platform Facebook, as a whole, we believe that the company's Google OpenSocial pushed him in 2008. As we wrote in our mid-year review, Facebook Platform: The pomp Revisited, when the Facebook platform debuted last year, was touted as the next big thing. You no longer needed to attract an audience to your app. Instead, your application can be delivered in one of the largest audiences across the web. And not just delivered, and injected into the massive social network. But while it started great, it turns out, is not so simple. Three main issues emerged:

1. Technical: Should be OK, just a teaser that leads users to your site, or it should be replicated and have full functionality?
2. Business: If e.g. The New York Times building Facebook app, it will be their economic (since there are few income of Facebook)?
3. Provider costs: Are there any pay for Facebook to support the platform? As a business with great value, Facebook need to maximize profits.

Despite these problems, Facebook platform shows no signs of slowing, and many startups have ported their Web applications for Facebook. It could not be more than a bee's knees, but it is still a very effective platform to launch use.

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