Don Dodge on whether blogs and wikis can be (application) platforms …
Well, yes, they certainly are … fitting nicely in this big trend, where the web becomes the platform, e.g. have a look here or here, and for another application wiki check out this.
For the record, some notes by Don Dodge:
Application platforms are very profitable in the software business. Platforms attract developers. Developers build all kinds of interesting applications…which attracts users. Millions of users mean your platform will generate revenues for a long, long time.
Wikis and blogs are great collaboration tools, but they are now moving beyond that to become application platforms. Socialtext and JotSpot (acquired by Google) are building out suites of office productivity applications built on top of a wiki platform. Telligent and Blogtronix are building application platforms on top of the blog model.
Web 2.0 applications are more than just “webifying” existing apps. Web 2.0 applications are inherently interactive and collaborative at every level of the application. They are simple to build, easy to manage, and cheap to maintain. Increasingly they are being built on new platforms like blogs and wikis, and using new tools like AJAX and REST.