Amazon understands the power of shared innovation

In an interview with ACM Queue Magazine, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels demonstrates the company's wholehearted embracing of a Platform approach, and points to the value of nurturing a wide community of developers very similar to the one we're supporting here.

Writing on his blog, Vogels points to 'A conversation with Werner Vogels' in the May 2006 issue of ACM Queue magazine.

In the interview, Vogels describes a number of the technical decisions made by Amazon in ensuring that they can grow and continue to innovate whilst operating a large and highly visible online presence. He also recognises the fundamental importance to their model of nurturing and empowering a community of innovators outside the organisation;

"Making Amazon.com available through a Web services interface to any developer in the world free of charge has also been a major success because it has driven so much innovation that we couldn't have thought of ourselves."

With the first set of Talis Platform web services about to launch here on the TDN, we'd have to agree with that sentiment! Have a read through the rest of Werner's interview and share your thoughts on other lessons that Amazon might usefully teach all of us.