Livescribe is a pen that records audio and tracks the text that you write. It’s also a electronic toy (device) that has its own developer’s platform. That’s right. A pen has its very own platform for developers to create applications to run in cooperation with its device. It’s kind of a cool idea but it makes me wonder what’s next for developer platforms and in what direction is the platform market moving?
Let’s start by looking at some of the applications that are being made available on Livescribe’s platform. One is an app that displays the president associated with whatever number you transcribe on paper. If you write the number 16, the pen will show Abraham Lincoln’s name. Another app in the works is for text transcription, converting it into audio for multiple use case scenarios.
So far the potential of the apps and Livescribe’s developer’s platform seems to be capable of only niche products. For now that may be the case. But what the future could hold is an entirely different story.
Some of the major developer platforms right now are those from Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter. From a business standpoint each of these companies nurtured their respective developer communities in order to drive a sub-economy that is heavily tied to its product. The upside to this approach is an ability to market its platform’s primary product through developers pushing their applications, as well as the ability to extend the value of those platform-supported applications to end users with little upfront costs on their end.
Can the same reign true for Livescribe?
At this point I don’t see much more than very niche products emerging from the Livescribe application store, but the Livescribe device is itself a niche product.
What works for one business may not work for another. But there is one trend in particular that may eventually affect Livescribe’s platform and associated app store in a positive manner. Developer’s platforms often end up in cooperative partnerships with each other, or at the very least forge some sort of support for each other’s products so that developers can create even more seamless integration for their users.
This means that it is quite likely that the Livescribe app store will not gain significant traction until developers find a way to associate Livescribe apps with other apps or features found on other media sites and social networks. Transcribed speech into text and vice versa can be automated for voice messages or blog entries, which can then be subsequently spread across the social web. Notes taken with the Livescribe pen can be automatically saved, backed up, sent via email and uploaded to a note-sharing application used by students on Facebook.
It’s all very promising, especially when it comes to cross-platform support and the unavoidable emergence of a new market. This new market could stimulate economic development for independent and incorporated developers on a global scale, and the existence of niche platforms merely widens the opportunity for innovation in the cross-platform line of thought. It will be interesting to watch, especially as more devices are becoming equipped to link back somehow to the necessary accounts we all have (email and online social networking).
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