I recently began playing with Ruby on Rails, a web development framework. Among the interesting features of RoR is the use of the Model View Controller architecture. In layman’s terms, this means the code is split into three sections:
- Model. This is the actual data you use (though its not necessarily “the database”). For example, the data in your Salesforce instance is the information about your prospects.
- View. This is the way you view the data: desktop or mobile? Lists, charts or tables? In Salesforce, this is how you view your leads and the reports on the leads.
- Controller. The controller is the list of actions you can take to interact with the data. In Salesforce, this is what fields you can edit for a lead record.
Thinking about this the other day, I realized each of these are a specific revenue opportunity, and many companies primarily focus on one. To wit:
- Model. The biggest revenue for most social networks is the Model. By capturing these data, Facebook and Linkedin can offer highly targeted advertising space to businesses.
- View. While Twitter focuses on the Model piece by being the platform where the data is recorded, many companies have started to improve the view of Twitter: Tweetdeck and Hootsuite for example.
- Controller. While Facebook owns the data of their users, the great value is in what you can do with this information. Rapleaf, for example, has built a business based on reconciling the models of different sites via their controllers.
What this means for your startup: Its important to consider what part of the architecture is critical to your business. Many entrepreneurs are considering creating a product to compete with Facebook, Farmville, and/or Foursquare, but do you want to compete with them or complement them? Finding a way to use their existing Model and provide a different controller or view may be an easier way to find users.
What this means for your blog or book: If you have a blog with a lot of content, and you want to improve your revenues from it, you may consider allowing others to build a different view, such as a book or podcast. If you have a book with lagging sales, you may consider turning it into a serial through a blog, such as Kevin Kelly’s book, “New Rules”.
Bottom line: In the current business paradigm, the focus is becoming ever more narrow. The winners in online consumer software are focusing on one piece of their architecture and letting others optimize the rest.
