I touched on this in my Commenting 2.0 article a bit, but felt I needed to elaborate on the topic a bit.

Large successful networks today are quickly becoming platforms. Applications are a fine and great example, but the next step? in my very humble yet loud opinion, is networks built on other networks. Essentially, any network with an API (application programming interface) becomes the cloud service layer for niche networks on top to use.

How it works

In Facebook terms (though this is certainly not limited to FB), imagine creating whole community sites around groups. Love that San Pellegrino? How about a site with all those group members that google maps restaurants that serve San Pellegrino over Perrier mineral water?

Lets take it one step further. I like to travel and would like to create a tight community of travelers where people can plan and share trips together, connect, and discuss. No need to create a new profile, Facebook Connect has me covered. I?ll need a trip logging and mapping engine. Dopplr has an API that I can use. I want my users to have cool spaces to upload their photos. Flikr will do that. Vimeo can handle the video. You need to send some uncompressed TIFF image files to a member who asked for a print of that vista? Drop.io allows you to build on top of their platform as well. A simple threaded forum system, a blog upfront interviewing members about their trips? and you have a pretty rocking community powered online destination.

The point I am trying to drive is that this if Twitter is built on Rails and Facebook is really a massive mySQL database (lets keep it simple ? ), then the community sites of tomorrow (in, again, simple terms) are going to be built on Facebook and Twitter as their service layers.

Click “Read More” to see hows this benefits us users and most importantly brand managers seeking to harness this social internet thing.

The user end

This is AWESOME news for users. Data portability + niche communities + features we already use. I no longer need to rewrite every tidbit of information about me or play the copy/paste game. I also don?t have to jump the credibility hoops. It is the iMe (internet me, duh) and these future mashup sites will allow me to express myself online with an unprecedented amount of freedom. Yay!

The business end

Not only do the users benefits, but also companies taking advantage of this will be able to leverage this trend to engage the users with their brand. I can see JetBlue or Virgin creating community sites that integrate ticket ordering with automatic Dopplr and/or Plazes trip creation that feeds to Facebook. Cross syncing Plazes and Dopplr alone is an unmet need that can add value to the user? (C 2009 Gary Sheynkman, thanks).

Crucially, capitalizing on this trend will reduce one of the biggest barriers to entry for advertisers: interruption.

At the browsing level interruption is a pop up ad. Annoying at best, infuriating at worst. At the user experience level interruption is filling out forms and starting over. IT SUCKS. The web offers enough attractions without the need to register.

One of the reasons why Drop.io is growing quickly is because I can come to the page, upload a file, and get a link. No going to my inbox. No verifying anything. No interruption? I can even do it from with a Firefox widget. Ever heard of Instapaper? It doesn’t even need a password!

Heed the insights of these quickly growing services, and you have a great opportunity to create brand equity ? and isn?t that why we are here? :p

Would love to hear some feedback on this. Comment down below, tweet, or shoot me an email, I?d love to hear from you.