Under the hood
A growing number of companies are busily creating new Web-based platforms on which other software -- or businesses -- can be built.
 SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0 Magazine) - A related area of frenzied action is among the growing number of companies either offering themselves as Web-based platforms on which other software and businesses can be built or developing basic tools that make some of the defining hallmarks of the Next Net possible. For instance, Salesforce.com (Research), a relative veteran that pioneered the delivery of software over the Internet, recently launched a platform called AppExchange; any programmer can write an application to run on AppExchange, and Salesforce.com will host and deliver it to customers.
Meanwhile, startup Brightcove is building a video publishing and distribution platform for Internet TV. It will allow companies such as AOL and Viacom (Research)--as well as smaller publishers--to deliver video over the Web, as either downloads or streams with ads attached. Then there are the toolmakers. By developing blog-authoring software called Moveable Type and TypePad, Six Apart has been a catalyst for the whole Next Net phenomenon. Its software has helped everyone from Pittsburgh's Super Bowl-winning quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, to humorist Dave Barry create blogs. Startup SimpleFeed enables companies such as EMC (Research) and Intuit (Research) to use RSS feeds as an opt-in marketing tool. The feeds can be customized to each recipient and tracked individually for both internal messaging and external marketing campaigns. See the full list and photo gallery: The Next Net 25
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