Ecommerce

Facebook has just launched what it calls “social ads”. Details are available at this Forbes article and at this facebook page.

Google announced common standards for accessing  “api platforms” available across several companies called opensocial.

Resources:

NYT article

Publishers (e.g. websites, bloggers) can now get video content for their website and monetize it.

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This article provides interesting perspectives in the future of web startups.  The post is at PaulGraham.com. Paul Graham is one of the partners at Y Combinator.

Glenn Kelman, of Redfin  (online real estate broker)  offers a few actual numbers involved in their startup at this Guy Kawasaki blog. California and Seattle numbers. Details here.

Marc Andreessen, offers his entrepreneurial oriented (less traditional) take on career planning, in this post of his. Some may find it interesting.

Marc Andreessen, of Netscape fame, has written an interesting post on Internet platforms.  His analysis of Internet platforms suggests there are three types of platforms, which he refers to as Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3.

He refers to platforms like paypal and flickr as level 1 platforms with their “access” and REST interfaces.  He categorizes platforms like facebook’s popular platform, as level 2 (or “plug-in” type) platforms.  Finally, he mentions level 3 platforms like ning, saleforce and amazon where the apps run on the host platform.

He predicts an increase in level 3 Internet platforms.  It is an interesting read and available here.

Internet platforms are increasingly important in ecommerce.   In this previous post on making web services/API profitable, incentive schemes to promote platforms are also mentioned.