The problem I have with your piece is that it falls into the trap of, “To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Why must we define things according to such artificial All-or-None parameters?

Case in point, is Google a web company or an apps company? In PC, the answer is (mostly) clear-cut, but in mobile, Google’s best apps are just as likely to be native apps as they are to be web apps.

Google Maps for mobile is a native app. Google Earth is a native app. So, too, Google Voice.

Moreover, how can you credibly argue that the Apps Economy is not a platform play when tens of thousands of developers prove differently?

Perhaps the boring, simple truth is that if you want ubiquity with zero installation, web apps are the way to go. If you want to develop a better user experience, native apps are the way to.

One size doesn’t fit all, just as one truth is an overly simplistic (un) truth.

I think that the larger challenge to the apps economy is business model. The PC era gave rise to numerous $100M+ revenue companies, so too with the Web era. To date, the best we can say about the Apps economy is that Angry Birds is a $10M+ business.

At the end of the day, a platform play succeeds or fails based upon the ability of developers to make money on that platform.

Thus, I’d argue that the model that prevails will be the one that enables its ecosystem the richest path to economic viability.

Outcomes over attributes.

Cheers,

Mark

The one spot I think could be improved is the economics of apps. With Apple having established the category, everyone copies them. Not only do they want 30% of the sales price, but most agreements want a percentage of all your revenues and include onerous terms like audits.
While I agree that walled gardens can provide a better experience in the short term, it is at the expense of long term innovation and improvements. Those will only come from a truly open environment.

Enjoyed the piece.

Some emerging thoughts….

1) web as platform….. I reckon that the real platform is the users. My brain is the only thing that holds together all the ‘platforms’ that I interact with. My brain is the bit you’re really trying to innovate on top of. Well, obviously not just _my_ brain

2) apps are generally more focused, and the release cycle imposes more of a ‘think before you code’ mentality. This clarity might give similar advantages for apps over websites as unix commandline tools have over bloated registry-hog windows applications. (just painting a picture here)

3) critical for apps will be the way that they access data from servers, and the way that apps communicate with each other. The shared keychain code in the iOS api has barely begun to be exploited, and ditto for GameKit- which should be used much more outside of games.

I’m going to try and make more sense of these thoughts in a blog post, but thanks for giving me lots to think about.

Cheers

Peter