Facebook Week: Analyzing The Facebook Platform and Apps
This week is Facebook Week on Read/WriteWeb. Over the next 5 days we're going to focus on the most impressive Web Company of 2007 - analyzing it and reporting on its top third party apps. To 'launch' Facebook Week, let's review how this company turned itself into the leading web app platform on the Internet, in a matter of months.
To celebrate Facebook Week, we've set up a Facebook Group for Read/WriteWeb readers. It's open to anyone... even Australians :-) We're running a poll too, at the end of this post, asking how many 'friends' you have on Facebook currently. We'll run other Facebook-related polls over the course of the week.
How Facebook Took On MySpace
Facebook has come into its own over the past year, by first expanding its user base in September 2006 (beyond US college students) and then opening up its platform in May 2007. Neither of these were surprising moves, but both were necessary in order for Facebook to challenge its rival MySpace.
The Fox Interactive-owned MySpace has been the number 1 social network for the past couple of years, but it had (still has) two glaring weaknesses. One is that MySpace is a closed platform, meaning that third party developers either cannot integrate their products into MySpace or - even if they can - there are many restrictions. The second major 'weakness' of MySpace is that it is heavily skewed to a teen audience; and so is not particularly appealing to older people. There are other issues too - e.g. the design of MySpace is appalling - but the two main weaknesses above are the ones that Facebook needed to target, and did so very successfully.
Facebook's attack on Myspace started in September 2006, when they opened up their user base beyond US college students. That allowed people like me - a mid-30's kiwi - to join. But still, at that point there was little in Facebook to appeal to me, or other non-college users. However that changed in May 2007, when Facebook launched an open platform. Soon after, there were hundreds of third party apps in Facebook - and suddenly I had loads of 'friends' on the platform.
The Platform
In Read/WriteWeb's 2007 Web Predictions, published in December 2006, we predicted that "social networks will probably [...] become more open - and data portability will start to occur." Facebook essentially made that a reality in May 2007, with the launch of "The Platform" - a system enabling 3rd party companies to integrate their services inside of Facebook user pages. Almost overnight, this made Facebook much more of a threat not only to MySpace - but interestingly to Yahoo too. Suddenly, Facebook was a major player on the Web scene. Why? Because no other Internet bigco had opened its platform to such an extent - possibly with the exception of Amazon. But Amazon's open platform is more about portability of data, whereas Facebook's is an open invitation for third party apps to integrate into a hugely popular social network platform. In the long run, Facebook's May 2007 platform launch may have signaled the next Big IPO (after Google's).
The Future
Facebook has its competitors - e.g. the start pages and other social networks like LinkedIn. But there's no question Facebook has set its sights on being a big, influential Internet company. Already many startups have integrated their products into the Facebook platform, so over the rest of 2007 it'll be interesting to see how the platform continues to grow and how many more mainstream users Facebook attracts.
Coming up this week: we'll profile many of the Facebook apps coming out and analyze further the Facebook platform. Stay tuned!
Poll: How many Facebook friends do you have?
Share4 TrackBacks
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.readwriteweb.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2361
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
looking forward to reading all about it... that is, assuming i can tear myself away from Facebook to do so ;)
- dave "facebookaholic" mcclure
http://500hats.typepad.com
My oh my, they have created a monster.
I look forward to reading your coverage over the week, and hope to see RRW's trademark analysis and thoughtfulness as something of a counter to the current rash of Facebook cheerleaders across the blogosphere.
Facebook's great, so far as it goes. The Facebook Platform is also a powerful driver of traffic to Facebook.com. To truly fulfil its potential as a Platform, though, the flow of traffic must go both ways.
See, for example, http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/2007/07/some_followup_platform_thought.php.
http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/2007/07/some_followup_platform_thought.php (without the trailing '.'), even.
I am just amazed how much chatter there has been around facebook - I think it is an excellent service, but I am just amazed how much Hype there is in the social networking space. I did recently read there was a rumour of Facebook being offered 6 Billion dollars [http://blog.sherifmansour.com/?p=113] to sell out - its just amazing how much these 'virtual assets' are being sold for... its defiantly a MASSIVE hype
Currently most Social Networking sites create closed silos of user information and content that cannot be easily shared, reused, or redistributed outside of the network. FaceBook is a closed Silo. Myspace is a closed Silo.A Facebook member cannot export their Profile to Myspace. A Myspace member cannot export their profile to FaceBook. This is not because there is not technical way to export member profiles; its because both companies want to lock users in their into the Myspace and Facebook silos.
The Facebook "Open" platform is not only a gimmick it is also an Orwellian attempt to hi jack and redefine the term "Open" I think that may "Open" source proponents would agree that "Open" when it refers to software applications at the very least means inter operable. FaceBook is not interpretable. Myspace is not inter operable. From today onwards it is my hope that those reporting on and covering FaceBook will no longer use the term "Open" to describe the FaceBook platform.
The Data and content that members own cannot be easily exported out, or used with many other existing internet applications. The flow of data and information is one way. The Open platform is in fact open for developers, but closed to the rest of the internet. A one way vacum of appication development that can never expand to any users base other than Facebook. FaceBook has a "Closed" and platform much the way that Microsoft has is a closed Platform. Develop for Microsoft and your application will be dependent on Microsoft technology and will not easily port to any other platfrom. Develop for FaceBook and your application will not work on any other platform. By doing either you have limited the possible amount of networks that can distribute and use your application.
AOL at one time was also the darling of the internet. A big fat closed platform that attempted to lock users. While AOL had quit a run; it was only a matter of time before users understood that AOL was not the internet. That there were millions, and millions of other networks to participate in. Once the hole of reality was opened and members realized that they were free to go beyond the AOL wall; the flow if members leaving the silo could not be stopped. It will be the same for FaceBook.
The arrogance of attempting to redefine and close in that which cannot be defined or captured can only lead to a steady fall and ultimate humiliation.
LV Gucci Chanel Chloe Fendi Prada Handbag On Sale:
www.hello-luxury.com
Free shipping worldwide ! Free matching wallet for order !
This is interesting Richard. Looking forward to the posts on facebook.
Re: Facebook not being open - that's true. However, as far as I know there's nothing to prevent other companies from reverse-engineering their API and using it other sites. In fact, Facebook apps can be run in an iframe, so theoretically any site could run them. Hmmm...