Many two-sided platforms (for example, eBay, Google, iOS, Android, Twitter, and Amazon) provide integration tools, such as modular interfaces, interactive development environments, application programming interfaces, and help desks, to reduce the costs and improve the functionality of third-party content developed for the platform. The need for such investment is increasing with the rise of major new markets as the result of technologies, such as the “Internet of Things.” Although crucial to platform success, platform integration tools are costly to create. We develop an analytic model to explore the key tradeoffs behind investment in integration tools and how that investment interacts with pricing decisions in a two-sided market. We model these decisions for hardware/software platforms as well as hybrid retail platforms and analyze them under various scenarios, including monopoly and competition. Our results suggest that considering integration investment can create market regimes in which the standard pricing results from the extant platform literature no longer hold. For example, the tendency to reduce prices to one side of a market in response to increasing the benefit of the network to the other side may be suboptimal in the presence of integration investment. Therefore, integration investments must be well coordinated with pricing decisions made for both sides of the market. In general, higher levels of investment by hardware/software platforms into integration become desirable when the platform (1) has access to a large pool of content providers and consumers, (2) is able to develop integration tools that are highly effective in reducing third-party development costs, and (3) operates in a market in which content providers earn a high-enough profit margin creating content that is highly valued by the consumer market. Hybrid retail platforms often show similar behavior. However, there are some nuances. For example, business to business platforms can make investments in integration to facilitate participation by both sides of the market. We find that these investments are complements, not—as one might expect—substitutes. We conclude by discussing this work’s implications for theory and practice.

中文翻译：

---

在双向网络中推动第三方价值创造的平台定价和投资

许多双向平台（例如eBay，Google，iOS，Android，Twitter和Amazon）都提供了集成工具，例如模块化界面，交互式开发环境，应用程序编程界面和帮助台，以降低成本并改善服务质量。为平台开发的第三方内容的功能。随着诸如“物联网”之类的技术的出现，随着主要新市场的兴起，对此类投资的需求也在增加。尽管对于平台成功至关重要，但平台集成工具的创建成本很高。我们开发了一种分析模型，以探讨集成工具投资背后的关键权衡，以及该投资如何与双方市场中的定价决策相互影响。我们为硬件/软件平台以及混合零售平台的这些决策建模，并在各种情况下分析它们，包括垄断和竞争。我们的结果表明，考虑整合投资可以创建市场体系，而现有平台文献中的标准定价结果不再成立。例如，在存在集成投资的情况下，响应于将网络对另一侧的利益增加而降低市场一侧的价格的趋势可能不是最佳的。因此，整合投资必须与针对市场双方制定的定价决策充分协调。通常，当平台（1）可以访问大量的内容提供商和消费者时，需要硬件/软件平台进行更高级别的集成投资。（2）能够开发在降低第三方开发成本方面非常有效的集成工具，并且（3）在内容提供商赚取足够高利润空间的市场中运作，从而创造出受到消费者市场高度评价的内容。混合零售平台通常表现出相似的行为。但是，有一些细微差别。例如，企业对企业平台可以在集成方面进行投资，以促进市场双方的参与。我们发现，这些投资是补充，而不是-正如人们可能期望的那样-替代。最后，我们讨论了这项工作对理论和实践的意义。（3）在内容提供商赚取足够高的利润率的市场中运作，该市场创造的内容受到消费者市场的高度评价。混合零售平台通常表现出相似的行为。但是，有一些细微差别。例如，企业对企业平台可以在集成方面进行投资，以促进市场双方的参与。我们发现，这些投资是补充，而不是-正如人们可能期望的那样-替代。最后，我们讨论了这项工作对理论和实践的意义。（3）在内容提供商赚取足够高的利润率的市场中运作，该市场创造的内容受到消费者市场的高度评价。混合零售平台通常表现出相似的行为。但是，有一些细微差别。例如，企业对企业平台可以对集成进行投资，以促进市场双方的参与。我们发现，这些投资是补充，而不是-正如人们可能期望的那样-替代。最后，我们讨论了这项工作对理论和实践的意义。不像人们期望的那样替代。最后，我们讨论了这项工作对理论和实践的意义。不像人们期望的那样替代。最后，我们讨论了这项工作对理论和实践的意义。