Ok I admit it — I am a twitter, facebook, linkedin et al. junkie. I spend my life searching through tweets, and wall updates to stay on top of what is happening in the social networks that intersect my life. 

I came across an interesting post where the author, Owyang, did a great job of suggesting that Twitter may become a social CRM. While the notion is certainly feasible I think it misses one of the compelling events we are witnessing in the cloud computing space: the convergence of clouds.  Does it make sense for twitter, the "social telegraph of web2.0", to build a platform for managing contacts, opportunities etc. when Salesforce.com, the leader in on-demand CRM & Cloud Computing already offers integration with Facebook, Twitter, Googledocs etc? Sure it is possible; but is that where the opportunity is? I'm not convinced.

So what is driving all of the innovation and open communication between the cloud service providers? In my opinion, it is open APIs and a flexible platform, coupled with a realization that one company can not be everything to everyone. I doubt Salesforce.com is going to be major social networking site like Facebook, but it can take advantage of the contacts and relationships contained within such sites, to enrich their products, and build a very compelling case for customers and partners to innovate on top of the force.com platform.

This open approach to APIs and the embracing of the  ISV community, who can create/connect anything for/to anyone, on top of these rich platforms, is what is driving the rapid growth of innovation throughout the cloud. 

If you don't believe me just look at the number of apps on the appexchange, facebook, and twitter

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