To know where platform ecosystems are heading,
look to the past
By Shelly Horwitz
For the past two decades researchers have studied the rapid rise of platforms– the open infrastructures connecting producers to consumers. From Facebook to Google to OKCupid, scholars want to learn more about everything from data management to digital privacy in platform ecosystems.
But who researches the researchers?
This June a team at MIS Quarterly (MISQ), a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal, developed the first curation of platform and ecosystems. They identified and analyzed 81 relevant papers across 22 years of research based on MISQ papers. The team defined three distinct eras of platform evolution: their creation, their spread, and their current state of industry dominance. The curation sheds light on the rapid growth and influence of the field – including the rise of business-to-business platforms.
One hope is that this snapshot of platform lifecycles will help illuminate its future. Here is a summary of the key trends the team identified:
- LAUNCH: WHAT’S IMPORTANT? (2000 – 2007)
Long before iPhones existed, platforms were beginning to take off.
In these early years, platform research was still emerging, too. The curation team identified only four relevant papers among published articles on MISQ from 2000-2008. The research focused on simply identifying the new, intriguing phenomena popping up in platforms and ecosystems: growing markets; inter-platform competition – for instance, MySpace users defecting to Facebook – and underlying software.
IDE Fellows Geoff Parker and Marshall Van Alstyne are members of the MISQ curatorial team. Parker said the sentiment during the early days of platform development was, “Hey, this seems important. Let’s describe it.”
But around 2008, interest in social media and other platforms exploded and so did the research studies.
2. GROWTH: UNDER THE HOOD (2008-2015)
Over the next seven years, platforms proliferated and scholarly research amped up as well. The MISQ team identified 36 relevant papers published between 2008 and 2015.
And as platform ecosystems expanded their reach, research shifted from “What’s happening?” to “Why?”
Academics began theorizing, trying to understand platform ecosystems at a deeper level. Their studies ranged from the economic (why one user might enjoy a free product and another might pay), to the organizational (how platforms might build and empower communities), to the technological (how different platforms might weave together). New theories abounded.
“Ecosystems and platforms were clearly getting more important,” Parker said, “so [researchers] began to ask… ‘What’s under the hood?’”
Soon, economists, as well as software developers and technology companies, had new interest in platforms’ rise. After all, understanding the infrastructure and monetization behind their success were crucial to understanding how they might be explained, replicated… and controlled.
3. MATURITY: THE FEEDBACK LOOP (2016-2022)
As platforms gained sophistication, so did researchers’ understanding of them. Businesses could apply theory to practice.
Studies shifted focus to fine-grained analysis of transaction fees, cross-platform compatibility and distinct interfaces. Among researchers and in daily life, platforms were no longer a passing trend.
But with new knowledge came new concerns. Scholars began acknowledging the potential dark outcomes of platforms’ influence, from social media’s role in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections to concerns over platform monopolization that cut out smaller producers and suppliers.
Efforts to address those concerns – the large and small-scale effects of how platforms are transforming society – are ongoing. But, says Parker, “That’s what the progression of a field really looks like.” Risks can be found as well as rewards.
THE FUTURE: THE MASHUP PHASE (2022 – ?)
If 2007, 2016, and 2022 marked three distinct tipping points in platform research, what might come next?
One certainty is that progress will continue. Today, the field is dramatically different from the one in which platforms came of age. From social media regulations in Europe to antitrust movements in the U.S., regulators are beginning to take a keen interest in how platforms might help – or hinder – digital equity.
Another certainty is that more research will take place. In a data-driven, AI-enhanced economy, platforms are taking on new roles in the green economy, cyberspace and in global financial markets. New studies surely will seek to explain them.
Until then, the curation from the team at MISQ provides researchers with a fuller understanding of platforms and ecosystems’ inception, development, and growth. Armed with that foundation, researchers, developers, and industries of all kinds can build new platforms and models for the next phase of the digitally connected economy.
Shelly Horwitz is a freelance contributor to the MIT IDE