Citizen Agency

“Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers…”

That’s what a passionate (and somewhat sweaty) Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer famously chanted (video) some years ago at a conference – proclaiming Microsoft’s love and respect of it’s developer base.

As an operating system vendor, Microsoft has always been keen to support the very developers who add value to their platform – those who make the desktop applications that enable Windows to perform the functionality Microsoft’s customers demand.

Of course, that video was filmed some years ago and we’re now in an age where “the web is the platform” , to quote Tim O’Reilly.

Those running websites today (not to mention VoIP services, hardware manufactures…) are realizing the importance of empowering developers in the community (aka Mashup Space) through the operation of a developer network around their service or content proposition.

Essentially developer networks provide everything developers need to access the ‘core’ of your platform – be it APIs/feeds, documentation, community support and perhaps most importantly of all, encouragement.

There are many reasons why you might want to deploy a developer network, but the primary reasons are:

• Innovation
• Increase revenue
• Marketing
• Identify talent
• Ubiquity

Innovation
Is there was an amazing alternative use for your technology or service that you didn’t even know about? By running a developer network you’re empowering the community highlight new possibilities that you had never thought of.

Or maybe there are other niche opportunities that simply fall outside your business plan – why not allow others to explore those possibilities and potentially work with you in the future to see them through?

Having a number of innovative and experimental projects that are dependent on your API is a sign of a very healthy service. What you do with this opportunity is up to you – bounce new ideas of them and test new features on them, facilitate them to go commercial with a revenue share or even buy the technology to bring it in-house (pre-designed, pre-built, pre-tested). It’s up to you — but they’re all opportunities that wouldn’t exist without a developer network.

Increase revenue
Do you have a killer service that you’re currently only able to monetize via page ads? It’s a common problem – the serving of webpages effectively becomes the ‘DRM’ of your service and the only way to make the VC’s happy with a source of revenue.

But it doesn’t have to be that way – if your service really is that good, would others pay a small premium to use it in their own applications and project? An ideal solution is to let the community develop small-scale new uses for your service and then work with successful examples to help them go commercial. By then they’ll have a successful model they have raise funding for (or just be confident of a return) and will be better placed to pay for full commercial access to your service API.

Marketing
You can only spend so much time, energy and resource promoting your website/service. By encouraging developers to incorporate your service into their own projects you are letting them spread the word on your behalf. But we’re not just talking about a token reference to your service on their site – if the end-users of those websites have a positive experience they’re going to be particularly interested to find out what else your core service can do.

Identify talent
Are you on the look out for new developers? Even if you aren’t right now, what about when you’re company needs to scale after that next round of funding? Spotting developers who have created something amazing with your product beats any job interview process I know of. And if they’ve had the passion and fire in their belly to do so in their own spare time, think of how fired up they’ll be when you’re actually paying them!

Ubiquity
Want to find the ultimate differential between your product and those of your competitors? What about ubiquity? What if your users could find it on any page on the Internet and not just yours?

Google Maps is a great example of this – how may times have you used a Google Map on a non-Google site such as HousingMaps.com? Chances are you first encountered Google’s mapping property on a third-party site too. (by the way, check out the story behind HousingMaps.com on Wired).

Most commentators would agree that the reputation of Google’s maps has been bolstered over that of it’s competitors by people’s continued exposure to it across the Internet – and as such they go off to Google Maps when they need to find the correct directions to Albuquerque. Google Maps has effectively become ‘the Intel Inside’ for web-based mapping.

“But my site already has an API. And RSS feeds too”.

Great! But does it look like you are actively supporting and encouraging the developer community to actually use them, or do they just come across as an ‘after thought‘, linked to at the bottom of your pages?

How do potential developers know what the terms of use are, and what the deal is if they want to go commercial? And how do they find other developers to swap ideas with and collaborate on bigger projects? Did I mention documentation?

By putting all of the ‘techie stuff’ in one place you are not only making it easy for the developer community to find everything they need, you are ensuring the rest of your proposition remains focused on the primary ‘non-techie’ audience.

And now for a word from our sponsors…

We don’t want this to be a sales pitch, and genuinely hope the information above is of value on its own. However, we hope you don’t mind us mentioning that Citizen Agency helps both start-ups and established companies not only create developer networks but also design API sets, explore revenue opportunities and produce complete strategies to ensure their benefit is fully capitalised inside the business.

Not only that, we reckon we’re the first and only specialist developer network consultancy – with people who have proven track records creating such networks for big names such as the BBC and Firefox. That’s in addition to our firm commitment to community-focused strategies – regardless of whether your audience is developers, other businesses or Mom and Pop at home.

Developer networks have moved on since Steve Ballmer’s days where you were only welcome if you could afford $1000’s for MSDN licences.

If the ‘web is the new platform’, then the developer community is your new R&D division, marketing team, recruitment pool and business development department rolled into one.

We think every new website should have a developer network. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to find out more about how we might be able to help you create one. Antiperspirant supplied at no extra charge.

Further reading:

• IBM executive summary on mashups and developer networks
• BusinessWeek on Mashups
• Forbes on Mashups
• Programmable Web’s list of current APIs

PS: If you thought Steve Ballmer’s ‘Developers, developers, developers…’ video was funny, check out the remix.