Internet Platforms, which one to do?

I read a great posting written by Marc Andreessen on what defines an internet platform and what differentiates one platform type from another. You can find his write-up here.

I appreciate the time he took to write this because it helps me and my team to answer a fundamental question, "Why are we building this product?" It is easy to look at the near-term and focus on solving the "low hanging fruit" problem -- we're doing this to solve problem A. But what happens after A? Perhaps we need to architect our solution, such that we won't have to solve problem B, but allow other people the opportunities to solve B and subsequent problems.

You'll find in Marc's writing that he shamelessly promotes Ning, which is one of his companies. I normally find that type of promotion a little too self-serving, but in this case, it isn't so bad. The reason is that Ning is growing and has not reached critical mass such that mainstream America and Madison Avenue will pay attention. Marc is explaining how Ning is different from other platforms because it is cutting-edge in the way that it will host and run other people's applications. Sure it's a social network, but it allows for 3rd parties to do more than any other type of network will allow. We won't have to host, process, and manage our apps locally because if we deploy on Ning and tap their user base, we'll be using their infrastructure. Kinda neat, huh?

Confused yet? Well, go read his write-up and let me know if it makes you rethink your vision for your ideas.