Skills: noneConcepts: application program interface (API), platform, ecosystem, Internet infrastructure (cloud) services, application development cost trend, end user application development trend

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Internet application development -- cheap and easy

Where does this topic fit?

• Internet concepts– Applications– Technology– Implications

• Internet skills– Application development– Content creation– User skills

Why its cheap and easy

1. The ecosystem 2. The cloud

The ecosystem makes new apps cheap and easy

Twitter home page, September 30, 2006

Twitter home page, November 9, 2006

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Isaac Newton, Letter to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1675

Why its cheap and easy

2. The cloud

Amazon Web Service bill -- $.01

Smooth scaling

Development tools

The rest of us

Summary

Self-study questions

Two strategic factors make developing a new Internet service cheap and quick – describe them.

Google and Facebook have APIs for developers wishing to build applications on top of their services and databases. Give examples of some of the capabilities they provide to developers.

Yelp uses Amazon’s Web services for their site. Read this case study:http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/ and answer these questions:

• How much traffic does Yelp handle?• Briefly describe the Amazon services that Yelp uses.• What are the business advantages to Yelp in using Amazon’s Web

services?• Are there any business disadvantages?

Resources

• Twitter’s instructions and documentation for developers using their API: http://apiwiki.twitter.com/w/page/22554648/FrontPage

• Amazon Web Services: http://aws.amazon.com/• The business case for Amazon Web Services: http

://aws.amazon.com/economics/• Yelp case study using Amazon Web Wervices: http

://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/yelp/• Other Amazon Web Service case studies:http

://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/• Blog post on infrastructure services: http://

cis471.blogspot.com/2008/01/infrastructure-services-for-developers.html

• Stanford class quickly builds applications on the Facebook platform: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/technology/08class.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all