This Changes Everything
Facebook launches Facebook Platform, this changes everything….
Facebook is giving an unprecedented amount of access to developers. The API would allow, for example, a third party to recreate Facebook Photos, the most used photo application on the web. Users could then remove the default Facebook Photos and install the third party version instead.
Applications can serve their own adds and/or conduct transactions with users. Ads can basically be shown anywhere that Microsoft ads are not currently shown.
There will be a special applications area on Facebook where users can browse and add third party apps. But there is also a crucial viral component - when a friend adds an application, it is noted in their news stream on their profile. Clicking on the item brings you to the app, where you can add and/or interact with it yourself.
It’s now very easy to see why Facebook has been turning down large buyout offers saying there is a large disconnect between the value they have on the company versus that of the outside world.
The Facebook Platform will basically be a mini-web in a sense and this will make it the most important portal on the web. What do you think of this news?
Cameron Olthuis is the Founder of
I think Facebook is probably going to end up as the one-stop shop for personal publshing. Google wants to organize all the world’s information and I think Facebook wants to be the publishing mechanism for getting a lot of that data to the web.
I think it is sweet in how they are taking the bull by the horns and not just looking for a quick web 2.0 exit/buy out like everyone else. I think it is the best way to take on MySpace head on as well as they are against 3rd party apps. There will be some cool features that come out of this.
I think this is a glimpse at what people will eventually think of as a hallmark of Web 3.0. While Web 2.0 has been all about the “social web”, we are reaching a point where there are simply too many compelling social web sites for a typical user to keep track of. This leads to fragmentation — in effect, it all becomes too much work for the average user to keep up with friends on different networks, limiting growth to early adopters. The future is with interdependent websites with rich APIs so that they can pool information and interact.
I’d expected this to be a hallmark of an approach that Google would eventually take at overlaying a social web system across its properties. It is heartening that Facebook got to this first.
I agree completely that this is likely to change their valuation. I think that Google’s future interest in buying out Facebook will in part reveal how confident they are in their internal social networking plans or how worried they are about the competition getting a piece of this action.