A Little More Detail on the Facebook Platform
One of my main questions about Facebook’s newly announced “Platform,” an API that allows outside companies to build services within Facebook for its millions of users – is how these news bells and whistles will actually attract the attention of Facebook’s social networking masses.
TechCrunch provides a little more detail on how this is proposed to happen:
Not only can these third party startups get a widget placed on people’s Facebook profiles, but they can also get viral distribution through users’ news feeds and access core Facebook features. Using the tools that Facebook made available, developers could build new versions of some of Facebook’s own applications, like Facebook Photos. Users can then remove those default applications and add the new ones. Like Microsoft with Windows, Facebook is now competing with application developers on its own platform.
Michael Arrington also rightly points out that Facebook is moving in the right direction while MySpace seems to be drifting into penny wise-pound foolish territory by locking out third party applications that are not willing to pay them a fee to stick around.
MySpace and Facebook both have massive audiences today. But there’s no guarantee that they will be able to hold onto their respective hordes long term. It seems like a smart idea to me to allow developers to come in and innovate and compete for eyeballs within your web community, as opposed to letting in selected developers who are willing to pay an entrance fee.
At this rate, Facebook could end up being the “MySpace” of social networks.
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