Today, Tim O’Reilly spoke about the power of platforms to the inaugural class of Code for America fellows.

What’s happening today is an “open data” movement, said O’Reilly. “That’s what’s going to build the next platform.” As he’s said before, he thinks we’re now in an interesting platform stage where “the Internet is the operating system.” As early adopters of the new Google Chrome netbooks, a material metaphor for that notion is now online.

You can listen to the audio of Tim O’Reilly (my publisher) or download the MP3. Video may be available. later. Editor’s Note: O’Reilly Media is a supporter of Code for America and its founder, Tim O’Reilly, sits on its board.

The notion of “government as a platform,” which Tim has been speaking about for years now, is founded in his understanding of how technology companies have historically grown and flourished. Many of the anecdotes and historical underpinning of Gov 2.0 are in the webcast, “What is Gov 2.0?” in the side bar of this blog.

Here are a couple of key points from today:

Lesson 1: Platforms spread when they are ubiquitous and barriers to entry are low
Lesson 2: Create an architecture of participation, like Unix.
Lesson 3: Small pieces, loosely joined, which drove the growth of the World Wide Web.
Lesson 4: Don’t (just) build websites, build Web services.

There’s a lot more in there that builds upon Tim’s platform paradigm for government. Give it a listen and, if you find some other insights that particularly strike you or apply to how you think about how government can leverage the power of platforms, please share it in the comments.

If the notion that data and simplicity can build the government platform sound familiar, it should: Tim talked with the first United States chief technology officer, Aneesh Chopra, about how these ideas apply to government last year:

Building on that, if you have a moment, head on over to the White House “ExpertNet” wiki and share your thoughts on how the federal government should be designing democracy, specifically with respect to creating an open governnemt platform for citizen consultation.