I’ve had a bunch of interesting conversations with many people since “The Age of the Platform” was released, including my friend Adrian Ott of Exponential Edge, about the nature of modern-day platforms. Are they more business to business? Business to consumer? Neither? Both?

The most powerful platforms today are Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. What does the Gang of Four have in common? They are certainly consumer-driven platforms and companies — and this leads to a key point: People are swamped.

Ask yourself the following question — and be honest.

How do you react when someone tells you about an exciting new music or movie service?

This isn’t 1998. Many people interested in online movies and music already use a service — legal or otherwise.

In all likelihood, the answer to the question above hinges on whether you’re happy with iTunes, Spotify or Netflix, respectively. If that answer is yes, are you going to switch to the just-announced Google Music? Are you going to immediately start streaming movies from Amazon? Probably not, unless there’s some compelling reason such as:

• Integration with a ubiquitous service (read: Spotify).
• Vastly more content.
• A dramatically reduced price.
• A new device that seamlessly integrates movies (read: Amazon’s Kindle Fire).
• Adding planks.

Remember that Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and other platform companies try to keep you on their platforms as much as possible. At a high level, this is why Google launched its music service, Google+, Gmail and other planks over the past 10 years. A platform missing a key plank runs the risk of losing consumers en masse — and quickly.

A company missing a key feature, product or service in its platform will probably do one of the following things:

• Attempt to build its own plank.
• Acquire a company that provides that key service or plank..
• Forge a partnership with a company that offers this product.

So, what does this ultimately mean for Google Music? A few things come to mind. For one, because Google makes the vast majority of its money from advertising, its new music service does not need to generate billions in revenue, immediately or long-term. Second, it’s unlikely to supplant iTunes, Spotify and other entrenched and popular services. If Google Music is going to make any significant inroads, then it must land all major record companies.

As Chris Smith writes at TechRadar:

“Google announced partnerships with EMI, Sony and Universal Music to provide the same high-quality 320KBps MP3s hosted by iTunes. However, the fourth of the big four record labels, Warner Brothers, is conspicuous by its absence confirming rumors that Google had failed to lure all of the big players into agreements before launch.”

Of course, Warner Bros. will probably come around. It’s instructive to note that iTunes did not launch with every record company on board. Despite such massive change over the last five years, some things have remained the same. Case in point: people like music. Think of Google Music as perhaps a defensive move. By offering the ability to easily consume music, Google gives its users and consumers another means of staying on its platform.

Music is inherently social

Creating an effective social plank does not mean slapping a like button on a product page (a la Amazon) or tying in some basic social functionality (a la Apple iTunes with Ping).

It should come as no surprise, then, that Google launched Music after the unequivocal success of Google+. Think about it. Planks are cumulative; Larry Page was not about to mandate the installation of a Like button to facilitate the sharing of music. Now that Google+ has signed more than 50 million users, it is time for the company to integrate its planks as well as Facebook has — or at least try.

Will Google be successful? It’s an open question — as are many in the Age of the Platform.

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He makes the case that Twitter’s and Facebook’s social-media dominance won’t last forever.  Twitter isn’t for everyone (although it is, he says, “the morning paper.”) Facebook, on the other hand, is for everyone, but “it can’t be everything to everyone.” Hence the need for social-network diversity if we’re to get the most from the medium.

At first blush, myYearbook seems to be a mashup of the “chatter” of Twitter, the multimedia enhanced streams of Facebook, the network/meet-new-people aspect of LinkedIn and the teeny-bopper feel of MySpace (myYearbook’s tagline is “Friends. Flirt. Fun.”) It has yet to be seen what kind of implications a platform like this might have on business, but it’s worth keeping an eye on.

Along the way, however, Cook gives marketers like us a primo takeaway. His team surveyed users of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and myYearbook on why they used the various services. The four graphs he shares are invaluable to marketers trying to figure out — or fine-tune — their multi-platform strategy. If only the last one were LinkedIn …

Regardless, as emerging platforms like myYearbook throw their hats into the ring, it’s interesting to consider the social streams we use now and how they will evolve.

What’s your take? Is Twitter your morning newspaper, as it is for Geoff Cook? What do you foresee as the next generation of social media?

Photo credit, iStock

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