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Amazon’s SimpleDB another brick in the Super Platform

As I wrote about previously (here and here), the move to the Super Platform in the cloud continues in grand style.

In the same way that no business has its own electric generator any longer, so it will come to pass that no business will have its own servers. They will plug into a super platform in the cloud, just like they plug into the electric grid and pay by the sip.

Amazon’s SimpleDB is the latest addition to the Super Platform stack, adding incredibly powerful database capability.

So the components of a Super Platform are starting to become clear. To be complete, it appears that a Super Platform needs to include the following:

1. A database, like SimpleDB or Google’s BigTable.
2. Storage, like Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3).
3. A processing environment, like Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).
4. A simple, standard protocol for accessing the Super Platforms technology, like the Google Data APIs and Amazon’s Web Services.
5. A built-in, flexible payment system so users can pay for the applications they are using on the Super Platform, like Amazon Payment Services and Google Checkout.
6. A built-in ad capability to facilitate an ad-supported application monetization model.
7. Fully integrated generic services, including email, docs and spreadsheets, wikis, social networking, etc. Only Google provides this currently.

UPDATE: Just got my new Businessweek in the mail. Timely!

Google and the wisdom of clouds

Gadgets - a New York Times magazine Idea of the Year

Gadgets got their own section in my favorite edition of New York Times magazine - the Annual Ideas Issue.

In a piece called Crowdsourcing, Scott Malcolmson points to the trends that are giving rise to the explosion of gadgets:
1. Online sharing of content;

2. The spread of social networks to contain that content within stable online frameworks;

3. The number of relatively average people who are able to write computer code;

4. The pressure on tech companies to open themselves to outside developers.

He quotes Slide’s founder Max Levchin predicting a huge future for [gadgets], which he recently characterized as “tiny little TVs that live on Web pages.” The widget, he said, is “likely the most powerful media broadcasting system ever built.