[web] From Application to Platform

I admire these two companies for having the terrific vision and the engineering talent, to grow their product from an application with a specific set of functionality, to a platform of applications that now supports an entire ecosystem of companies, developers, users -- and of course, in that process, making itself absolutely indispensable.

Salesforce.com AppExchange - Still the the best success story of hosted enterprise software. The AppExchange demonstrates their deep and clear understanding of the users' needs -- which is, that they are all different.

Facebook Platform - A most elegant way to extend the social network core app, by making itself the central platform from which all other social network apps can run on and must plug into, and making its own app a whole lot more interesting. I added the "Drinks" app right away.