What is the hottest trend in business right now? Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter? Sharing economy applications such as Uber and Airbnb? Apple and its line of personal computing devices? Or software as a service for the enterprise, such as Salesforce?
You could probably make a case for any one of these, but here is the thing: although on the surface these companies appear to have completely different business models, they all share one very powerful component: a scalable online platform connecting people and ecosystems.
