What Are Some Easy-to-Understand Platforms?

Some of today’s most successful businesses are platforms.

One example is Amazon, which connects buyers and sellers of goods in the Amazon Marketplace, while Amazon’s Kindle also connects readers with content providers. So does Apple’s iTunes. And both the iPhone and Android are platform that connect software developers with consumers.

Taxi startup Uber is also a platform. It connects drivers with customers and seamlessly handles payment when your ride is done.

Other major platforms include Square, Xbox, Youtube, Airbnb, Skype, WeChat, Facebook, and Instagram.

Really, platforms are everywhere today. They’re efficiently connecting consumers and producers, and even enabling entirely new transactions that wouldn’t have taken place before. That’s why platforms are becoming the dominant business model for the connected revolution.

Filed under: Platform Innovation | Topics: connected revolution, platform thinking, platforms, Q&A Videos