Designing your Product as a Platform

Designing Your Product as a Platform
Micah Laaker, Yahoo!

Caveats
Platform = software framework that powers 2 or more products
Lots of technology “recommendations” that are mostly used for example purposes; before adopting technology, investigate for latest updates to this space
Internal platform? External platform? Similar considerations.

questions when embarking on Platform Design
How “open” to go?
How do I leverage Users?
How do I shape my Data?
How do I engage Developers?
4 1 2 3 4

How Open? Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wiccked/133164205/ 1

Open Source
Free to use
Community contributions
Decentralized
High reliability
Open 1/13

Open Infrastructure
Pay-as-you-go, only-what-you-need cloud computing
Outsource hosting, ops, and processing
Open 2/13

Open Architecture
Anyone can mod your product... on your product
Plug’n’Play
Open 3/13

Open Standards
Community-driven
Goal is inter-operability
Software and Hardware
Open 4/13

Open Ontology
Describe what can not be seen
Future-proof your data
Goal is the Semantic Web
Open 5/13

Open Access
APIs
Multi-channel access
3rd-party Developers/Partners can build on your platform
Open 6/13

Open Canvas
Product becomes a vehicle for 3rd-party content
Fast food sites: your content to-go
Open 7/13

Open Content
User is the editor by programming self-relevant content
Content comes to you when its ready
Open 8/13

Open Mic
The product is populated entirely by users
Users own their content
Products support making/discovery of content
Open 9/13

Open Forum
Users contribute ancillary data
Ratings, reviews, ranking, and link submissions
Heavy social interaction
Open 10/13

Open Door
User as product decision-maker
Reveal operational details
Communication is open to all
Open 11/13

Open Borders
Settings/configs can be imported/exported
No (product) commitments
Users can come-and-go
Open 12/13

Open Identity
User as owner of identity
1 ID for many sites
Power to the people
Open 13/13

In what way(s) are you “open?”

How does our product support our users?
How does our product engage our users?
Leverage Users 2

User Identity
Support of OpenID as a relying party
Aggregation of cross-web identity
Leverage existing Relationship graphs
Support function

Access to User data and configurations
Lifestreaming
Attention XML
User Broadcasting Support function

User Feedback
Suggestions
Metrics
Support function

User Contributions
User is the owner and creator of your product’s content
Engagement model

User Enhancements User adds value to existing content/system: Engagement model

User Extensions
User as part of the product
Repairs, adds, and extends data
Engagement model

Leverage Users

Shape Data 3

Define the object

Describe the Object
Use Microformats/RDFa
Assist machines in making sensible decisions about your data
Improve SEO
Make future integrations/product ideas feasible with small investment upfront

Connect the Object
Support relationships between data
Social Graph
Interests
Kevin Bacon for Data
Use FOAF + XFN

Distribute Objects
Expose XML/feeds of your items
Map your feeds thru YQL Open Tables

Data Model
Define Objects
Describe Objects
Connect Objects
Distribute Objects

Engage Developers 4

Privacy/Security
User’s creds. should never be shared
Industry-standard auth. protocol (OAuth)
User must control relationships

Canvases
3rd-party content inside your product
Technology: Apps & Widgets

Service Exposure
Make product functionality available as a service when applicable

UI Components
Build (and make available) UI as components when utilized in 2 or more locations

Policy
Define SLAs and Commercial TOU
Establish rate limits and means of surpassing
Communicate status of platform

Developer Engagement
Privacy/Security
Canvas support
Service exposure
UI Components
Policy

Platform Design Task List
Determine “Open-ness”
Define User Leverage model
Define Data model
Define Developer Engagement model
1 2 3 4

Open Platform One-Sheet UX User Exp. Dev. Exp. Data Model Open Source Open Infrastructure Open Architecture Open Standards Open Ontology Open Access Open Canvas Open Content Open Mic Open Forum Open Door Open Borders Open Identity

In Closing
Learn more about the Yahoo! Open Strategy: developer.yahoo.com/yos/
Contact: Micah Laaker / www.laaker.com [email_address]

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Designing your Product as a Platform

by Micah Laaker

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