Is Facebook Platform Really Open?
About a month ago Facebook released Facebook Platform. It’s a way in which people and companies can build applications within the Facebook social network. It received a ton of buzz when it was released and a lot of misguided people anointing it as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Well, some of the hype is starting to run its course. I noticed two articles recently, one from Jason Calacinis and one on Wired.com that are starting to look at Facebook with a more critical eye.
I’ve always thought Facebook Platform was sort of a throwback to AOL circa 1998. Back then, everybody and their mother wanted to be on AOL’s proprietary Rainman interface screens to generate traffic to their properties. Facebook Platform is a walled garden that is anything but open. It goes against a lot of the principles of the post-bubble, web 2.0, semantic web ideals that the last wave of darling sites have followed. Nine years ago, the idea that AOL would be virtual non-player in 2007 would have been laughable, but the walls always come down.
Having looked at the sample apps and the hooks Facebook provides, it’s easy to see that they have a bunch of very smart people working for them. They have done a good job providing developers with the tools to build some decent applications, but is it worth it to build inside their walls? There have been a couple of applications that have seen success and a couple have been acquired by larger companies. I think the primary usefulness of building an application is to market an existing site or product to Facebook’s rabid user base.
As for Facebook’s basic social network product, I find it somewhat juvenile. I see why it caught on with its core audience of college students, but I don’t see a lot of professional uses. If only Linkedin would let me bite some chumps and turn them into zombies. What do you think of Facebook and Facebook Platform?
Update 8.9.2007 — ReadWriteWeb also did a story on this topic
→ Dan Hiester @ August 8th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Facebook was a fantastic thing for me to have when I was in college. Back then, Facebook only allowed college students to create accounts, and it gave me a great place to see what my new college friends were doing. Most of my friends from back home didn’t attend schools with Facebook networks, so it was a site only for new friends.
Now that Facebook has more generic networks, and apps, I think it’s still much better than Myspace. It’s really only as interesting as your friends, and since most of my friends aren’t really interested in biting chumps… you get the picture.
→ Nick Button @ August 30th, 2007 at 1:57 am
Speaking as a Web Designer, Facebook is a well designed application which serves its primary purpose very well – to the point where it has become something more.
Speaking as a Facebook user, Its a great way to keep in touch with people, because their activities are announced in the mini-feeds etc – allowing you to keep up-to-date with little effort.
Its great for rediscovering friendships. As more people sign up, you can make contact with people you would never have any contact with otherwise. Due to its design, I believe it surpasses ‘Friends Reunited’ in this regard.
And it’s FREE. We love FREE.