Take what man makes and use it,

But do not worship it,

For it shall pass.

An anonymous¹ wit scratched those lines on the side of a junked car door and lugged² it to a trail near my home in Northern California. The middle of a pristine³, ancient redwood grove⁴ is the wrong place to find a rusted-out car door, but the words magically transformed the thing from an aggravating⁵ piece of junk into art. I Googled the quote as soon as I got home, of course, but found nothing. (Thanks to Google, we live in a world where "I don't know" has become an unacceptable response. So my inability to identify the author there is driving me crazy.)

My town is pretty close to Silicon⁶ Valley, and most of my neighbors make their living in technology, while I make mine writing about it. All of us, though, worship at the altar of bright and shiny things. These days, it's the impending⁸ launch of Apple's next-generation iPhone that has the faithful davening. If the whispers of pending⁹ miracles are to be believed, this new phone could end up becoming the next big "platform."

A platform, to computer people, is the software code on which third-party applications function. There are scores of big platforms out there — something like three dozen in the international mobile-phone business alone. But a truly successful one can extend far beyond its immediate¹¹ group of users and effectively create and control an enormous market. In the computer industry, IBM dominated the first commercial platform with its expensive mainframes and operating systems, aimed at corporate¹² users. Seemingly overnight, IBM was supplanted¹³ by Microsoft and its Windows operating system as the PC revolution took hold. Windows, in turn, is now losing its power as the Web — owned by no one, accessible to all — becomes the dominant¹⁴ platform. (Yes, the Web is nothing more than a big layer of code; all those websites we visit are merely applications that sit atop it.)

Every major player in Techland wants to create the next great platform, of course. What's new here is that it's possible for any number of them to succeed. "Among the things that are different from the old status quo is the idea that one will win," says Marc Andreessen, who helped write the first widely adopted browser¹⁵, Mosaic¹⁶, which popularized the Web. The Internet is a much larger playing field than PC operating systems. "Trying to decide which will win," Andreessen adds, "is kind of like debating whether beef, chicken or lobster¹⁷ is going to win the market for food."

Still, for wonks like me, it's been riveting¹⁸ to watch three of the most innovative¹⁹ companies in Silicon Valley — each representing a fundamental phase of the information era—battle it out. Apple, Google and Facebook are, respectively, an icon⁷ from the pioneering days of personal computers; the biggest, most profitable company yet born on the Web; and a feisty upstart whose name is synonymous with the current migration²⁰ to social networks.

In many ways, these companies are technology's standard-bearers, though their guiding philosophies differ. Google, for instance, advocates an "open" Web and tends to push for open standards and alliances among developers. Facebook, with its gated community of 70 million active users, offers a more controlled experience and, so far at least, wants to keep its users safely within its walls. Apple comes from the old world. Its elegant products cocoon²¹ customers from the chaos²² of the information age, but the Apple experience tends to be highly controlled, with Apple hardware at the end points and Apple software and services, like the iTunes Music Store, in between.

The winners of the platform wars stand to make billions selling devices, selling eyeballs to advertisers, selling services such as music, movies, even computer power on demand. Yet the outcome here is far more important than who makes the most money. The future of the Internet — how we get information, how we communicate with one another and, most important, who controls it — is at stake.

Why Facebook Opened Up

The word platform reached buzzword status a year ago when Facebook founder²³ Mark Zuckerberg announced the start of a movement. "Social networks are closed platforms," Zuckerberg told a gathering²⁴ of about 800 developers in San Francisco. "Today we're going to change all that."

You can watch the video of the speech, as I did, by Googling the name of the developers' conference, "F8." What made F8 significant, historic even, was that it was the first time the Facebook platform was thrown open to developers. Anyone who knew how to write applications for Facebook was invited in. Andreessen says an open-coding environment is key to any successful platform because the easier it is to use, the more developers will be drawn²⁵ to it, making the platform that much more powerful. Facebook also gave developers free distribution. Users who want to add a new app can do so with one-click simplicity²⁶. All this, says Andreessen, who is rumored²⁷ to be considering a seat on Facebook's board, has helped make Facebook compelling: "The point of being a platform is you can enable creativity on the part of thousands or millions of other people who you don't have to pay and who have ideas that you wouldn't have thought of."

That's precisely²⁸ what has happened at Facebook during the past year. A kind of gold rush took hold as developer after developer started writing simple applications. As of June 1, some 24,000 programs — ranging from simple social gestures, like the ability to virtually poke²⁹ a friend, to fully³⁰ formed games like Scrabulous — were available to Facebook's users. Expect loads more. Facebook has given out its API keys — the code that developers need to access Facebook's platform—an astounding³¹ 400,000 times, many more than even Zuckerberg expected.

Zuckerberg, 24, is a hot ticket on the conference circuit, and when I spoke³² to him, he had just returned to Palo Alto, Calif., from a major tech-industry event near San Diego. There he had been grilled³³ yet again on whether he'd sell Facebook to Microsoft, whose minority investment gave Facebook a $15 billion valuation. (Microsoft, which tried and failed to buy Yahoo!, could use a new platform itself.) Yet again Zuckerberg said no, he's not selling out — he's just trying to build a great and viable³⁴ platform and that takes time. Zuckerberg speaks in a steady, mellifluous³⁵ tenor³⁶; he has a long neck and tends to point his chin upward, as if aiming the bell of a saxophone. "A lot of the last year in developing the platform has just been keeping up with the runaway³⁷ success there," he says.

That's what happens when you create a successful platform: a virtuous³⁸ circle blooms, with a mass of users attracting a horde³⁹ of developers who build fun or useful stuff, which in turn pulls in even more users. Needless to say, there are some pretty worthless and annoying applications too. At Facebook, app writers' income is derived⁴⁰ from advertising⁴¹ based on the number of people who install their programs, and a bunch have adapted in intrusive⁴² ways. Facebook has taken flak for applications like FunWall, which made it easy for users to accidentally spam their entire friend lists with e-mail invites to install FunWall. Zuckerberg says Facebook is tweaking its platform to help the most useful apps to spread while squelching⁴³ the junk.

I ask Zuckerberg about the theory that closed, proprietary⁴⁴ networks like Facebook could stifle⁴⁵ the Net's innovative spirit. That idea is the subject of The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, a new book by Jonathan Zittrain, co-founder of Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. He argues that the rise of gated, closed communities like Facebook, the advent⁴⁶ of the iPhone and even the seemingly innocuous standards-setting of Google could draw nerd talent away from the disruptive kind of innovation that occurred on the wild and woolly Net. Zuckerberg pauses for a minute to think, then says, "I generally agree with those principles and think that type of openness and portability is extremely important." Great platforms are often closed when they start and open up only as they mature and can handle the load. He adds, "We're kind of leaving that initial phase now and moving to a more open phase."

In fact, last month Zuckerberg announced Facebook Connect, which would allow users to take their contact lists with them to websites that add a snippet of code. Over time, it will be possible for, say, a blog owner to embed⁴⁷ a Facebook-style "wall" on his or her site, which would allow one to read only the comments scrawled⁴⁸ there by friends. It's a very cool idea. Facebook everywhere! But there's only one problem. A few days after Facebook Connect was announced, Google launched a nearly identical plan called ... Friend Connect. And if there's anything that could slow Facebook's frantic⁴⁹ pace, it's Google.

Google Tries to Connect

The first phase of the web's growth was all about putting information online and giving people a way to find and connect to it. The second and current phase is all about connecting people to one another.

"Social is the new black," says Joe Kraus, who oversees⁵⁰ Google's efforts to build out a social layer that runs across the entire Web. In this, as in all things that Google does, Kraus' strategy has been to create an alliance of social networks that will use open standards rather than Facebook's proprietary network and coding language, so that developers can spread their applications.

"Google has relied on an open Internet to make its entire business," he tells me. "It has a genetic⁵¹ predisposition for openness." That's partly because Google's core business, search, depends on openness. Google can't find the things you want on the Web — documents, music, images and so on—unless they are open and accessible, Kraus says. The richest Internet company on the Fortune 500 (it's ranked 150, with $16.5 billion in revenue), Google has a business plan that depends on the Web being used by as many people as possible. That's why the company spends so much time and energy building new applications that make the Web more useful or fun.

Social networks are a threat to that business; users tend to stay within their network and communicate among themselves or simply fool around with apps. When Facebook's users are playing Scrabulous or tagging photos, for example, they're not using Google. Indeed, they're more likely to discover new things via friends or in-network applications such as iLike, a service that matches your friends' musical tastes to your own.

So Google retaliated⁵² last November with OpenSocial, an alliance of Facebook's competitors — MySpace, hi5 and Google's own social network, Orkut, among others — to try to create a write-once, run-anywhere application platform. That means a developer, with only modest tweaking, can build an application that runs across all the major social networks except, of course, Facebook. "When you talk to developers, most of them don't have 50 people; they can't write their applications 50 different ways," Kraus says. "They really want to write their application once and get as much distribution as possible."

He definitely has a point. But I wonder if Google is too late — and old — for the social-networking party. "Google recognizes it needs to become more people-oriented, but it needs to add that to its existing platform. It's not at all native," says my neighbor, Seth Goldstein, who runs SocialMedia, an advertising network for social networks. "Facebook was designed from the ground up to render these complex and nuanced social relationships."

Why the iPhone Matters

Apple's calculus⁵³ is much simpler: it doesn't matter who prevails online — Facebook, Google, both or someone else. Steve Jobs simply wants to ensure that you use his devices to get there.

To that end, the new iPhone, which is expected to be announced on June 9, is "hugely significant," says Andreessen, who now presides over a company, Ning, that allows anyone to build his or her own social network. "The iPhone, a lot of people around here believe — and I think this is true — is the first real, fully formed computer that you can put in your hand," he says. "It has all the requirements it needs to be a viable platform."

Matt Murphy — a venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers who oversees the $100 million iFund to seed start-ups that build great iPhone apps — goes even further. He claims that the iPhone will "absolutely be the driver of the post-PC world." Murphy points out that the kit⁵⁴ needed by developers to build iPhone apps has been downloaded more than 200,000 times, and he estimates that about 1,000 applications will be available to consumers when the iPhone-apps store launches with the phone. "If you look at so many of the constraints⁵⁵ that have held back the mobile ecosystem⁵⁶, Apple basically takes all of those away and provides an open platform, a great device and a user base that's rabid for these new kinds of applications," he says.

Jobs' great skill has always been integrating cutting-edge technology and making it accessible. Flat-panel monitors, moviemaking software, wi-fi, digital-music players, touch-sensitive screens — these have all been out there over the past decade or so in ragged⁵⁷ and unpolished ways. His genius was finding and repackaging them, making the technology work to delight the masses. Similarly, Apple's iPhone 2.0 will popularize "geo-location" — think of the satellite-based navigation systems in many cars — as a way for people to communicate wherever they are.

Yet again, Google, which is fighting the platform wars on multiple fronts, could be Apple's stiffest competition. It is leading another coalition⁵⁸ to build an open-operating system called Android that will work in the next generation of cell phones as well as other consumer devices. The Open Handset Alliance has 34 members — mobile-phone carriers as well as handset makers⁵⁹, including Motorola, LG Electronics, Samsung, China Mobile, Sprint⁶⁰ Nextel and T-Mobile. Though Google ceo Eric Schmidt sits on Apple's board of directors and Jobs saluted⁶¹ Google as a partner whose apps were on the iPhone, Apple is notably⁶² not in the alliance.

This appears to be a case of — in Valleyspeak — "frenemies," companies that work together in some businesses while competing in others.

The first Android-powered phones will arrive, Google says, in the second half of the year, possibly around the same time as the new iPhone. At a recent Google developers' conference, the company showed off, for the first time, a generic⁶³ cell phone running the operating system. Touch sensitive, with an onboard, motion-sensing accelerometer that can also place a user precisely on a Google satellite map, the device resembles nothing so much as an iPhone. Android, explains Andy Rubin, Google's director of mobile platforms, is an open platform for developers à la Facebook; the code is theirs to modify. He says developers have so far written more than 1,800 applications, which could be distributed on a Google site arranged according to popularity, as YouTube is. "There's some pretty innovative stuff there," Rubin explains. "This is merging⁶⁴ the handset and the Web and coming up with something completely new."

To spark development, Google held a competition that will ultimately seed 10 application developers with $275,000 for the best apps. Robert Lam, whose Eco2go was named last month as one of the 50 finalists for the top prizes, says he decided⁶⁵ to develop his application, which helps users compute¹⁰ and reduce their carbon footprints, for the Android platform rather than the iPhone because it's so much easier. Developing for the iPhone "would have cost us an annual fee to list our application, and we would have to share 30% of our revenue with Apple as well," Lam says. That said, Lam is already looking into porting the app over to the iPhone after Eco2go is established. The iPhone could end up being enormously popular, and at this stage of the game there's no sense in foreclosing options.

I agree. Like him, I'm rooting for everyone in this war because it sounds as if — the concerns of Harvard's Zittrain notwithstanding — we all win here. Andreessen is right when he says the Web is so vast that it defies attempts to control it. With Google riding shotgun, it strikes me as unlikely that Facebook or anyone else can pull too far ahead. Also, I believe Zuckerberg when he says Facebook will continue to open over time. It's the smart move, and he's a smart cookie. Finally, I want to get my hands on the new iPhone. Its time will come and go. But for now? Great technology, today as always, renders us as gods.

The original version of this article incorrectly stated that F8 is the name of the Facebook platform. It is the name of the developer's conference.

充分利用人类创造的一切，

但是不要崇拜，

因为它们终究被超越。

不具名的这段话被刻在一扇废弃的车门上，车门被抛弃在加里佛尼亚北部我家附近的一条小径上。原生古红木林不应该出现一个锈透了的车门，但是这几行字却神奇的把来自垃圾堆的东西变成了艺术品。我一回到家就用谷歌了一下那段话，预料之中，没有任何结果。（感谢谷歌，让我们活在一个这样的世界里，“我不知道”令人觉得无法接受。所以，我未能知晓作者的身份让我很崩溃。）

我住的地方离硅谷很近，我的邻居们大多是技术工作者，而我是他们生活的记录者。我们都很崇拜明亮闪光的东西。苹果公司即将推出的的新一代iPhone将会出现忠诚的跟随者。如果传言的奇迹成真的话，那这个新款手机将结束旧时代并开始一个新的手机大“平台”。

对于玩计算机的人来说，平台就是指第三方应用功能在平台上运行的软件代码。已经有很多这样的平台了，手机界就有30多个。但真正成功的平台却是可以扩展它的直接用户群、还可以高效地建立并控制着巨大的市场。在计算机领域，IBM对企业用户依靠自己昂贵的大型机和操作系统掌控着第一代商业平台。似乎在一夜间，微软替代了IBM并且微软的操作系统带来了PC机革命。现在轮到了微软Windows，目前正在失去统治地位，而不属于任何人、却适用于任何人的网络已成为主要的平台。（是的，网络不过是是一个代码的承载者，我们访问的所有网页仅仅是其应用而已）

诚然，每一个计算机专业玩者都想创造下一代伟大的平台。新状况是谁都可能赢。协助编写了被广泛应用的互联网浏览器UNIX版的Mosaic（莫扎克）创始人马克·安德森说：“不同于以前的是思想也会助你成功”。因特网是一个比PC操作系统更广阔的领域。他补充说：“判断哪个会赢，与判断牛肉、鸡肉、或是龙虾哪一个会赢得食物市场类似。

对像我这样的书呆子来说，只能饶有兴趣的看硅谷的最有创造力的三个公司苹果、谷歌、Facebook 的竞争，每家公司都是信息时代的一个代言人。苹果是个人电脑的先驱，谷歌是网络出现以来最大的、最有盈利的公司，而Facebook是活跃的新产物，网站名称与社区网络同义。

尽管这些公司指导哲学不尽相同，但这些公司在很多方面都是计算机技术标准的持有者。例如，谷歌倡导开放的网络并倾向于推动开源标准和建立开发者联盟。Facebook已拥有着七千万活跃用户，提供更多控制权的体验并且至今为止希望所有的用户都在它的保护墙下安全使用网络。苹果来自于旧世界，它的精巧的产品让客户远离骚杂的信息时代，但是苹果的体验被控制在苹果终端硬件、软件和服务，像 iTunes 音乐店手中。

平台战争的赢家通过推销设备、向广告商推销眼球，推销服务例如音乐、电影，甚至是客户需要的电脑计算力。然而结果重要的不是谁获利多，而是我们如何获取信息、我们如何同别人交流。最重要的是谁来主宰因特网—因特网的未来正频临险境。

Facebook幕后

早在一年前，当Facebook的创始人马克·扎克伯格宣布运动开始时，平台一词就已经是业内术语了。扎克伯格对着洛杉矶的800个开发者说:“ 社区网站是一个封闭的平台，今天我们将改变这一切。”

你可以像我一样在谷歌上搜索这个开发者会议名称“F8.”，来观看这次演讲的视频。“F8.”之所以如此的重要，具有历史性源于Facebook平台是第一次对开发者开放的平台。 Facebook 邀请了一个会在Facebook 写应用程序的每一个人。安德森说一个开源的编程环境是一个平台成功的关键。因为平台越容易使用，会有越多的开发者进来写应用，从而使平台更强大。Facebook同时也给开发者免费派发它的平台。想添加新应用的使用者只需简单的用鼠标点一下就XING 。所有这些使Facebook 更有竞争力。传言想成为Facebook董事会的一个席位拥有者-——安德森说：“成为一个平台的关键是拥有成千上万的人的创造力，这些人不需支付佣金、而且拥有别人所没有想到的创意”

确切的说，这正是Facebook去年已经发生的一切。不断的有开发者写出应用是黄金到手了。到2008年6月1日为止，Facebook已有24000个应用供用户选择使用。从简单的社交手势，如动一下朋友，到完全版拼字游戏如Scrabulous。这也带来了更大的期待。Facebook已经公开它的应用接口代码——开发者需要进入Facebook平台的代码——比扎克伯格的预料多了40万倍。

24岁的安德森是会议桌上的红人。当我采访他时，他刚参加完圣地哥附近的一个专业技术行业会议，回到加里佛尼亚帕洛阿尔托市。很多记者问他是否要把Facebook 卖给微软，微软估价Facebook 150亿美元。（曾试图购买雅虎但失败的微软可能拥有一个新平台）同样安德烈用平稳而流畅的语调说了不，不打算卖出去，只是想靠自己试着建立一个大而成功的平台。他仰着长脖子并且抬高着下巴，就像在吹萨克斯管。他说去年在开发平台方面所作的一切已经接近了成功。

当你创造一个成功的平台就是这样：一个良性的循环，一大帮用户吸引着开发者开发出的或有趣或有用的东西，应用又吸引着更多的用户。当然，不可避免，Facebook也存在一些无用的、恼人的应用。写应用的软件开发者的收入来源基于安装他的程序的广告提成和一些也存在非法广告收入。Facebook已经开始封闭像FunWall的程序，这个程序可以一次通过EMAIL 邀请很多的朋友加入该应用。安德烈说Facebook正在调整，以帮助推广最有用的应用同时抛弃一些无用的应用。

我问扎克伯格像Facebook这样封闭、专有的社区网站可能压制网络创新精神。这也是《因特网的未来和应对策略》主题，是乔纳森·齐特林的一本新书，他是哈佛大学伯克曼因特网和社会中心的创始人之一。他说随着封闭的社区如Facebook 的兴起，iPhone 的出现，甚至谷歌的看似无害的标准制定者的出现，可能会破坏之前网络世界建立的开放和创。扎克伯格想了一下说：“ 我基本同意这种看法，并且认为某种程度上的开放是极其重要的。开始的时候伟大的平台通常是关闭的，只有当他们成熟了，可以处理问题了就会开放。我们现在正在离开这一阶段，开始进入一个更开放的阶段。 ”

事实上，直到2008年5月扎克伯格才宣布Facebook链接，允许用户添加代码片段链接他们的朋友列表到其他网络上。用不了多久，博主就可以在博客里嵌入Facebook的风格“墙”，可以阅读朋友发表的评论。这个想法很酷，Facebook无处不在！就在Facebook宣布几天后，谷歌也发布了一个类似的计划叫朋友链接，如果什么能放慢Facebook的惊人发展速度的话，那就是谷歌。

谷歌连接

网络发展的第一个阶段都是把信息放到网络上，让人们能搜索和链接上。第二阶段就是目前的阶段是把人与人联系起来。

Joe Kraus说：“社区是一批黑马”。他是谷歌在整个网络驰骋的运营官。正如谷歌所作的，Kraus的策略是创造了一个使用开放标准的社会化网络同盟，而不是Facebook在其专有的社区网络和编码语言，所以开发者可以传播他们的应用。

他告诉我，谷歌一直依赖开放的互联网做业务，它有着开放的遗传倾向。这是由于谷歌的核心业务—搜索依赖于开放。你想下的东西——文档、音乐、图片等都是开放的，否则你如何下。财富500强企业之一谷歌（排名第150，拥有165亿美元收入）的业务计划是使用率越高越好。这就是为什么公司花这么多的时间和精力去建立新应用使网络更加好用和有趣味的原因了。

社区网络对谷歌模式是一个威胁；社区用户倾向于呆在他们的社区里和圈里的人交流或仅仅玩那些感兴趣的应用。比如，当Facebook 的用户在玩Scrabulous 或者是给照片写标签时，他们没有用谷歌。实际上，谷歌更喜欢去发现一个新事物有区别于朋友圈或者是网络内应用就像iLike,他是一种相同音乐品味的速搭朋友服务。他们更喜欢通过朋友或者网络内程序来发现新事物，像iLike是一种可以得出你和朋友音乐品味相同的相似程度。

所以在去年11月谷歌也推出了OpenSocial，一个由MySpace、hi5和Google社会化网络Orkut组成的Facebook联盟试图创建一个可以一次编程，随处可用的应用平台。也就是说开发者只需适当测试就可以写出一个能在所有主流社区网络中（当然不包括Facebook）通用程序。克劳斯说：“所说的开发者，他们的成员大部分不会超过50人，他们不可能用50个不同方式去编写程序，他们只想编一次程序，就可以得到广泛的传播。”

他的观点没错。但对于社会化网络我认为谷歌是否太迟了、太土了。我的邻居塞斯·古斯坦，开着一家为社会化网络提供广告的公司叫SocialMedia，说“Google意识到它必须变得更加人性化些，但是它又必须把它加到它原有的平台上去，这就不自然了。而Facebook从开始建站就是用来处理复杂而微妙的社会关系的。”

iPhone的介入

苹果的计划就简单多了：它不在乎谁在网络中领先——Facebook赢，Google赢，双赢，或别的谁赢，无所谓。史蒂夫·乔布斯只在乎：他生产的设备是你上这些网站的工具。

安德森说，从这个角度上讲在2008年6月9日发布的新iPhone才是重点。他现在是一家叫Ning的公司主席，这家公司可以让任何人都能建立自己的社会化网站。“在这里许多人相信——包括我——iPhone是第一个真正的、全能的掌上电脑，”他说。“它会成为一个满足所有要求的可靠平台。”

KPCB投资公司的风险投资家马特·墨菲现在正在负责一个1亿美元的iFund项目，为的是资助编写好的iPhone应用的新公司并使它走得更远。他说iPhone绝对会主宰后PC时代。墨菲指出，开发者所需的开发iPhone程序套件现在已经被下载了20万次以上。他还估计说，当iPhone程序商店和手机同步上市时，将有大约1000种应用可供消费者选择。他说：“如果纵观现有移动产品发展制约点，Apple基本可以突破所有制约，提供一个开放的平台，一个最好的设备，同时还会有一个因这些新程序而疯狂的用户群。”。

乔布斯的高明之处，就在于他总是能把前沿科技作个整合，将它们应用于实际。平板显示器、电影剪辑软件、wi-fi、数字音乐播放器、触摸屏——这些被人们抛弃了几十年又被天才乔布斯发现、包装，这种技术的产物得到大众的厚爱。同样地，Apple的iPhone2.0将会“地理定位”得到普及——就像装在车里的那种卫星导航系统一样，让人们随时随地都能沟通。

再说谷歌，它正在平台战争中多面作战，并将成为苹果最大的对手。它正在领导另一个联盟Open Handset Alliance建立Android开放式操作系统。这个操作系统将应用在下一代的手机和其它的消费设备中。该联盟有34个成员，涉及到移动电话运营商和手持设备制造商，包括摩托罗拉、LG电子、三星、中国移动、Sprint Nextel和T-Mobile在内。虽然谷歌的CEO艾里克·施密特也在苹果的董事会，虽然乔布斯也很尊敬谷歌，把它的软件装入了iPhone，但苹果味在该联盟。

这个似乎是方言“frenemies”的例证，公司之间既在一些业务上合作，又在其他业务上进行竞争。

谷歌宣布第一部Android手机将于下半年面市，极有可能会和新iPhone的发布重合。在最近的一次谷歌开发者会议上，Google首次展示了一部运行了该操作系统的通用手机。带触摸屏，内置的运动感应加速度计，可在Google地图上精确地标出使用者的位置。这部手机一点儿也不像iPhone。谷歌的移动平台经理安迪·鲁宾解释说，Android是一个像Facebook一样的开放平台，开发者可以自行修改代码。他还说目前开发者已经编写出了1800种以上的应用在谷歌网站上就可下载，这些应用像Youtube一样按受欢迎度进行了排序。鲁宾说：“这是手机设备和网络结合后的新产物，有些应用很富有创意。”

为了激励开发软件，谷歌举办了一场最优10款应用、奖金27.5万美元的比赛。编写Eco2go的罗伯特·拉姆上个月进入了争夺大奖的50人名单，他说他写的这款软件是为了帮助用户计算和减少他们的碳足迹。选择在Android平台编写是因为Android平台比iPhone平台简单得多。拉姆说在iPhone平台上开发不仅要花年费才能在网站上排名，而且还要苹果还会提我们收入的30%。不过在Eco2go发布后，他已经在寻求把软件装入iPhone的办法。iPhone最终会变得非常之流行，到时候互相抵制也就毫无意义。

我同意他的观点。在这场战争中，我支持每位竞争者——可能哈佛大学的齐特林会不同意——因为我们消费者总会是获益者。安德森有一个说法是对的：网络太大，不可能被谁掌控。在我看来，有谷歌在这儿竞争，不管是Facebook还是其它什么公司都不可能实现对网络的垄断。而且，我相信扎克伯格说的Facebook会永远开放。一承诺很厉害，他是个聪明人。最后我还想要一台新iPhone，虽然它总会被超越，但有什么关系呢？技术时时更新，我们应该好好享受现在。