31 Comments »Ami Vora has just posted about Facebook opening up their platform. This is huge! Here’s the release:
At Facebook, we’ve always recognized that social context is an essential part of providing a great experience for our users, and we’ve wanted our users to have the best social experience whether they were on our site or off. That’s why, back in August 2006, we released the Facebook Platform API – with that release, developers could incorporate the data users chose to share into their own sites or applications to give users a more social experience no matter where they were. With the launch of the most recent version of Facebook Platform in May 2007, we also opened up the Facebook website itself.
We’ve seen a great response from both our developers and our users, and we’ve certainly learned a lot as we’ve worked on our platform over the past year and a half.
Now we also want to share the benefits of our work by enabling other social sites to use our platform architecture as a model. In fact, we’ll even license the Facebook Platform methods and tags to other platforms. Of course, Facebook Platform will continue to evolve, but by enabling other social sites to use what we’ve learned, everyone wins — users get a better experience around the web, developers get access to new audiences, and social sites get more applications.
This is just another step toward the vision of easy, open sharing of information. We look forward to supporting other social sites as they release their own platforms, and look forward most of all to the added benefit for developers and users.
You can find more information at http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/PlatformArchitecture and additional technical details at http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/FBMLspec.
There had been a lot of of speculation about Facebook joining OpenSocial once the platform had stabilized. It looks like other social networks are going to be able to leverage the power of the Facebook platform. There is no word on whether or not the other social networks will be able to leverage the power of the Facebook social graph but if Facebook opens up the social graph, this will be the biggest thing ever and Facebook will indeed become the dominant player in social networking.
The main point of this move by Facebook is to standardize the social networking platforms across the web so that there will be simple future integration among the platforms. This step is not an opening of the social graph …. yet. Will Facebook be able to convince other social networks to use tags like “
The official licensing of the tags and methods is great — very great.
Better yet, why not take an extra step and provide some
reference implementation open-source codes (as coding
examples and/or styles)… such that, could, say, our
friend at buddypress.com immediately benefit (and thus
many socnet sites will henceforth benefit also, ie.,
http://factoryjoe.pbwiki.com/FederatedSocialNet...
etc.)
Well done, facebook!!
/ac.
[...] to the AllFacebook blog, Facebook just announced that they’re taking on the OpenSocial movement by allowing other [...]
Agreed, this is big for the web. But slightly dangerous territory for Facebook.
They would love for their Platform standard to become dominant on the social web, compared to any rival standard receiving that honour. Ideally, they’d prefer their competitors to be too lazy to think about catching up.
If the platform no longer sets Facebook apart - because all sites share the same standard - then at least they can make a business selling the technology behind it. But one open source effort later and the claim that competitors need to pay to use FBML will be about as convincing as trying to copyright the alphabet.
And the suggestion that Facebook might go all the way and open up their social graph would surely make the Facebook social graph dominant - but as you said in your State of Facebook post, their data is extremely valuable. It would be risky to set it free…
The official licensing of the tags and methods is great — very great.
Better yet, why not take an extra step and provide some
reference implementation open-source codes (as coding
examples and/or styles)… such that, could, say, our
friend at buddypress.com immediately benefit (and thus
many socnet sites will henceforth benefit also, ie.,
http://factoryjoe.pbwiki.com/FederatedSocialNetworksMeetup
etc.)
Well done, facebook!!
/ac.
Facebook has launched ClosedSocial?
My thoughts here:
http://www.particls.com/blog/2007/12/facebook-l...
I’m curious why you think this would be a “massive blow” to Google….?
@Nate … well … Facebook has provided the solution that Google hasn’t. All that Google has provided is a standard. If other social networks decide to use the Facebook platform that isn’t “opensocial ready” it’s a pretty big move. Additionally, if they end up opening up the social graph, Facebook’s users will be immediately transportable across other social networks that they decide to use.
Agreed, this is big for the web. But slightly dangerous territory for Facebook.
They would love for their Platform standard to become dominant on the social web, compared to any rival standard receiving that honour. Ideally, they’d prefer their competitors to be too lazy to think about catching up.
If the platform no longer sets Facebook apart - because all sites share the same standard - then at least they can make a business selling the technology behind it. But one open source effort later and the claim that competitors need to pay to use FBML will be about as convincing as trying to copyright the alphabet.
And the suggestion that Facebook might go all the way and open up their social graph would surely make the Facebook social graph dominant - but as you said in your State of Facebook post, their data is extremely valuable. It would be risky to set it free…
[...] Facebook opens the platform to other publishers that want to enable ’social apps’ to be imported into their sites. This is interesting in light of the LinkedIn announcement. [...]
[...] Überraschende Meldung von Facebook: Die Technik hinter der im Mai gestarteten Entwickerplattform, die bis heute über 11.000 Facebook-Applikationen hervorgebracht hat, soll nun auch anderen Social Networks zur Verfügung gestellt werden. Dies verkündet ein Team-Mitglied im Entwicklerblog. Damit würden für Facebook entwickelte Applikationen auch bei Konkurrenten funktionieren, denen Facebook die Plattform-Technologie lizensiert. Details sind noch nicht bekannt, aber das offensichtlich direkt Nägel mit Köpfen gemacht werden, zeigt der heutige Start der Entwicklerplattform von Bebo, welche angeblich eine hohe Kompatibilität mit der von Facebook aufweist. [...]
Facebook has launched ClosedSocial?
My thoughts here:
http://www.particls.com/blog/2007/12/facebook-launches-closedsocial.html
I’m curious why you think this would be a “massive blow” to Google….?
@Nate … well … Facebook has provided the solution that Google hasn’t. All that Google has provided is a standard. If other social networks decide to use the Facebook platform that isn’t “opensocial ready” it’s a pretty big move. Additionally, if they end up opening up the social graph, Facebook’s users will be immediately transportable across other social networks that they decide to use.
[...] O’Neill of All Facebook asks in his post who the competition will decide to side with — Google or Facebook. To me, there’s no [...]
On the other hand, while data most valuable data to FB, we don’t want their soc graph data (or well, not urgent).. we (and the platform-software/service providers in general i surmise, eg., say wordpress.org or elgg.org, etc.) would want some worthy-of-reference open source codes, say directly in php, plus the very core db tables defs… therefore helping the social platform software developers “to conform to the facebook specs).. this would make the real difference in the FB vs. OpenSocial race.
On the other hand, while data most valuable data to FB, we don’t want their soc graph data (or well, not urgent).. we (and the platform-software/service providers in general i surmise, eg., say wordpress.org or elgg.org, etc.) would want some worthy-of-reference open source codes, say directly in php, plus the very core db tables defs… therefore helping the social platform software developers “to conform to the facebook specs).. this would make the real difference in the FB vs. OpenSocial race.
wow wow wee wow. its going to be interesting to see who is going to adopt it.
This is great news, it allows up and coming social networking sites like citypixel.com to have access to millions of users who can then sign up and create virtual spaces like apartment, cubes, etc… This is huge to the whole SN community…
This is tremendously powerful. Why would the thousands of developers on Facebook bother writing for a new OpenSocial platform when they their Apps should (theoretically) work on any other platform that licenses Facebook’s platform technology.
Furthermore, Facebook is the one with 150% growth in user-base vs. MySpace’s… ?30%? That means it will only take a few more quarters at that rate of growth for Facebook to catch up.
Finally, in terms of 1st to market, based on what I’m reading on TechCrunch, Bebo will have launched Facebook Apps before OpenSocial even gets out the door.
wow wow wee wow. its going to be interesting to see who is going to adopt it.
This is great news, it allows up and coming social networking sites like citypixel.com to have access to millions of users who can then sign up and create virtual spaces like apartment, cubes, etc… This is huge to the whole SN community…
This is tremendously powerful. Why would the thousands of developers on Facebook bother writing for a new OpenSocial platform when they their Apps should (theoretically) work on any other platform that licenses Facebook’s platform technology.
Furthermore, Facebook is the one with 150% growth in user-base vs. MySpace’s… ?30%? That means it will only take a few more quarters at that rate of growth for Facebook to catch up.
Finally, in terms of 1st to market, based on what I’m reading on TechCrunch, Bebo will have launched Facebook Apps before OpenSocial even gets out the door.
I’ve been talking about this possibility since my Introduction to FBML article back in early June, and I’m glad Facebook was the one to get the ball rolling. I figured some other social network would just do it, but it looks like Bebo and Facebook were talking to each other the whole time.
Facebook 2, Google 0
This is a play right out of the MSFT handbook. In the long run it does leave Facebook vulnerable to open source efforts, but the same can be said of MSFT. They’re still a $100Bn+ company.
[...] not going to analyze the HUGE news on Techmeme, but there’s still one issue I don’t understand — sure, [...]
I’ve been talking about this possibility since my Introduction to FBML article back in early June, and I’m glad Facebook was the one to get the ball rolling. I figured some other social network would just do it, but it looks like Bebo and Facebook were talking to each other the whole time.
Facebook 2, Google 0
This is a play right out of the MSFT handbook. In the long run it does leave Facebook vulnerable to open source efforts, but the same can be said of MSFT. They’re still a $100Bn+ company.
Since Facebook is not a software company (while MSFT, or even Cisco is), open sourcing (their own) software will very unlikely harm them, but instead, only reinforces its leading position, for whatever Facebook does or does not do, the Facebook competitors will do anyways (to dwarf Facebook wrt its influence in the market)… /ac.
Since Facebook is not a software company (while MSFT, or even Cisco is), open sourcing (their own) software will very unlikely harm them, but instead, only reinforces its leading position, for whatever Facebook does or does not do, the Facebook competitors will do anyways (to dwarf Facebook wrt its influence in the market)… /ac.
With Google’s treatment of bloggers over the last couple of months I see folks more hesitant to stand behind Google. Facebook competition with Google is welcomed.
With Google’s treatment of bloggers over the last couple of months I see folks more hesitant to stand behind Google. Facebook competition with Google is welcomed.
[...] O’Neill, who blogs about Facebook at AllFacebook, noted that Facebook is aiming to standardize the social networking platforms across the Web so that they [...]
[...] of this are pretty significant. While I previously announced that Facebook would try to compete with OpenSocial, I didn’t realize the overall implications. Ultimately OpenSocial is an extremely abstract [...]