TMW Ideas

If you wanted me to summarise the difference between good, nimble, successful companies that use digital, web 2.0, whatever you want to call it, I'd say it's the developer button.

Some examples. First, and closest to my heart, gambling. The betting world has been taken by storm by Betfair, possibly the most solid business model I've seen in Web 2.0. Betfair allows people to bet against each other, rather than a bookmaker. When the bets are settled, Betfair takes a 5% cut of the winnings. (Currently, £13,400,000 has been wagered on the winner of the Premiership this year. 5% of that is about £670,000)

Obviously, it is in Betfair's interest to have as many people using the site as possible. It makes no difference to them whether people win or lose, they still get their 5%.

So, Betfair have a developer programme. Basically, you join up, they open up their API, and you can build, sell, use applications based on the data that drives Betfair. This obviously leads to more activity, which leads to more profits. Everyone's a winner. Except the losers.

Look also at flickr, which has masses of cool stuff, most of it free and most of it made by amatuers, as has Facebook, Google et al. All of these sites have a small army of helpers beavering away, making them more useful, more fun, more interesting.

It's always worth thinking about how clients could use this type of activity to really add value to someone, as opposed to building a website from scratch…