Metcalfe's Law

A friend of mine recently emailed me this announcement with the comment "use this with idea and get rich." Although the announcement of an iPhone SDK is new, this is not a new trend. Companies such as Facebook, Google, and Yahoo have all signed up to a degree to the following model.

• Technology company reinvents itself as a technology platform company.
• Productizes its application tier with a public facing API.
• Markets to developers encouraging them to consume their API and "get rich."
• Takes advantage of subsequent buzz to build brand.

It's Metcalfe's Law all over again which is actually just a variation on the simple market forces of supply and demand. Leveraging developers to increase demand of the data that you supply is a straightforward way to increase the value of your services.