9 comments

• 

  Sam

  1 year ago

  I read an interesting story on Facebook mispells. Turns out that Faebook.com is a redirect for Amazon.com and Faceboook.com is a redirect for College.com- a direct competitor. I checked out the site and it looks great. They claim to be "filling the void" that facebook opened.
  reply
• 

  Hashim Warren

  1 year ago

  From a business standpoint, Facebook definitely should not support OpenSocial.
  
  Right now they produce the leading platform. Developers will create apps for both - Facebook and OpenSocial. That's an incredible position to be in - the "other" option in a market of exactly 2.
  
  They should take a page out of Apple's playbook and revel in their position as the more closed option.
  reply
• 

  Dan

  1 year ago

  No brainer, yes they should support the api standard and continue to grow as the leader in the application of those apis and the manipulation of social data.
  reply
• 

  theharmonyguy

  1 year ago

  I think Facebook has made very clear that they support "openness" and interoperability to a large extent, and that they haven't been idle about people's "walled garden" image of them.
  
  But I also think it will be some time before we hear anything definitive from Facebook about OpenSocial. Despite what the blogosphere may lead people to think, OpenSocial is still a very unproven project. Facebook has nothing to lose by waiting and watching other networks deal with issues first rather than changing their well-built platform structure prematurely.
  
  Bloggers keep talking like Facebook is dead or in serious trouble - not true at all. Until OpenSocial actually lives up to its hype, Facebook still has the upper hand - and even if OS delivers on all promises, Facebook is still in a pretty good position (they could still adopt OS, and they still have their biggest asset - the social graph).
  reply
• 

  theharmonyguy

  1 year ago

  btw, one interesting thing I've noticed about OpenSocial from the docs - people have been advocating an "open social network" where you host your primary identity, but from what I understand, OpenSocial means Google hosts your primary identity. I think OpenSocial is more about Google creating their own social network than people might think. (Course I still think "OpenWidget" is more accurate at this point.)
  reply
• 

  Nate Too

  1 year ago

  "Despite what the blogosphere may lead people to think, OpenSocial is still a very unproven project." "Until OpenSocial actually lives up to its hype, Facebook still has the upper hand"
  
  1. i would say FB is still an unproven project ($15b valuation w/ $75m in revenue) 2. what upper hand does FB have?
  reply
• 

  Craig Bovis

  1 year ago

  I think it simply comes down to these facts.
  
  1. End users couldn't give a shit about how the applications make their way onto a social network they just care that they're there.
  
  2. People will not stop writing the apps that people want on Facebook just because OS is available elsewhere. If they do it leaves a massive market open for other developers who will fill the gap!
  
  3. Open Social purely allows other networks to easily build a thriving developer community.
  
  If Facebook feel the desire to have OS apps on their platform in the future they will have the best of both worlds by havingthe much more powerful F8 platform AND support for all apps made on the OS platform.
  
  I would in fact say that Facebook is the real winner in this situation.
  reply
• 

  theharmonyguy

  1 year ago

  @7: Certainly Facebook has much to do if they'll last for the long term, but 51+ million users, 200,000 new users per day, over half of active users returning daily, etc., can hardly be called unproven. Also, the FB platform has been out for nearly six months, with 7,000 applications currently available.
  
  OpenSocial, on the other hand, has been out for one day, hardly any applications are currently available, only two host sites are live (one in a moderated beta), many security/privacy questions still linger, and pretty much only a few techies have started using any OpenSocial apps, most of them probably for development and testing.
  
  As for an upper hand - like I always say, Facebook is all about the social graph. Most of the 51+ million members on Facebook didn't join for the applications, and aren't likely to leave because another site has some application. (Most OpenSocial apps will probably be on Facebook anyway.) OpenSocial isn't the kind of grand open social network people have been talking about.
  
  Furthermore, since the Facebook platform has a time advantage, there are far more apps readily available, developers are already working on newer and better ones, and Facebook has been able to refine the system extensively. OpenSocial, on the other hand, is brand new and has less to show for than Facebook did at their platform launch.
  
  OpenSocial might (I'm skeptical) change the Web like some have said, but it's not going to do so overnight. Anything technology with the word "social" in it relies on a community of users - a social graph. And there, Facebook is a formidable opponent.
  reply
• 

  bernie

  1 year ago

  Facebook has a social graph but so does every site with an 'add to friends' feature.
  reply