Supernatural Agency: Online business tales

With Facebook and Netvibes creating versions tailored to the iPhone, it is increasingly obvious that this is not a phone, it is a platform for communications including social networking, feeds, phone, sms, web, etc. The other phone makers can’t duplicate this because they don’t have a rigorous operating system or a browser like iPhone’s Safari and the mobile operators remain determined to cripple features and break this universal access down into pieces that they can rent by the minute.

iTunes is also a platform for exactly the same reasons. It is a platform for serving rich media content and, once again, the key is one price for music without the draconian idiocies of the record business who would force us to buy crappy albums to get one good song and give up our legal right to share music we’ve purchased (within reason).

Now we already know the Mac is a platform but for what? It is a platform for creating the content made accessible via iPhone and iTunes. It comes with phenomenal creation software for free, includes built in video and audio recording inputs and syncs perfectly with the other devices.

Now you’ll note that I don’t mention iPod. That’s because it is going to be superceded by iPhone as a player. I think you’ll be able to buy an iPhone for Internet and iTunes use with the option to activate phone use in the near future- it simply makes too much sense from a strategic POV.

So there is an amazing strategy in place here. Apple owns the entire ecosystem: Content creation, content distribution, communication across all channels. If I were Microsoft I’d be nervously looking into the rearview. As crazy as it sounds, with iPhone, Apple has completed the loop and it will be very difficult for others to get in on the action.