Facebook To License Its Platform Code
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The rapid evolution of social-networking sites now will feature a competition among platforms, with the announcement on Thursday that Facebook will make its platform available to other sites.
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Wildly popular Facebook application is in hot water for similarity to classic board game. But could it be a marketing treasure trove for Scrabble's trademark holders?
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I don't know what Bebo is, I guess it's a social network, they say it's #3 in the USA, #1 in the UK, but they just did something that's pretty likely to work, if it's technically possible. They're cloning Facebook so that their service will run Facebook apps. What this means, if they can pull it off, is that they won't have to fight to get support from developers. That's a big deal. Google could have done this with OpenSocial. Watching the panel assembled by Marc Canter at LeWeb3, I was reminded of every tech conference I've been to for almost 30 years. Some big company sitting in the center, and lots of smaller ones sucking up to them, not daring to say what's obvious, that the big company is only interested in limiting the growth of an upstart (not present on stage of course). That's where the Fear comes in Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. We don't say anything because we're too scared to. Even the outspoken Marc Canter, who's smart and has been around this block many times, doesn't dare say what's obvious.  Now Bebo decides to get in lockstep with Facebook, not Google. Of course! Facebook has the juice. But this is a dangerous place to be if Facebook doesn't want them there, and being a big company, they probably don't. The only value of having clones to FB is that it negates the threat from Google. Sometimes having clones is a good thing, but usually the clones take over the market. Witness MSIE and Netscape, and then Firefox. Compaq et al and IBM. dBASE and Fox. It's possible to depose an installed leader if it's possible to clone them. As a user and developer, I'd like to see FB be open to cloning. If I were a FB shareholder I'm not so sure. One constituency that's sure to like the existence of clones are Facebook developers. Without choice in platform vendors, they have nowhere to go when the sole vendor decides to take over their market. With a viable alternative, unless FB is incredibly aggressive and builds its competitive features so they can run on competitive platforms, at least developers will have a place to run their apps when FB encroaches. Platforms are a game, like Risk, with rules and strategies. Google did not play the game wisely with OpenSocial. I chalk this up to inexperience on the part of the strategists. So far Facebook has been doing what's needed to keep its dominant position. Bebo deciding to clone the Facebook API ratifies that position, it's a gutsy move, but the best one available to them, and to other would-be Facebook competitors. PS: The news is slow to reach Europe. Facebook said yesterday that they support what Bebo is doing. Very enthusiastically. That should be the end of OpenSocial.
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Facebook introduces a Spanish version of its popular social networking site, and promises German and French versions soon.
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Plaxo, Google, and Facebook now have members in the relatively new consortium to promote social-networking interoperability. Don't expect to see immediate results any time soon, though.
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InfoWorld - Three months after it opened its platform to outside developers, Facebook is taking steps to prevent some third-party applications from engaging in what the social networking company considers inappropriate actions.
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BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. announced Wednesday it has launched software that will make it easier for Facebook users to use the popular social networking site.
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A small step for the budding social network's quest to be the anti-Facebook: Plaxo has opened up a portion of its source code dedicated to helping users manage their various social networking identities.
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The company announces a new program called FBFund to provide grants to developers who are interested in creating applications for the Facebook Platform.
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SAN FRANCISCO, May 24  /PRNewswire/ -- Facebook f8 Event -- Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive today announced two political applications built on Facebook Platform, a development platform that enables companies to integrate with the Facebook website and gain access to millions of users.
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Facebook kicked off the new year with additional tweaks to its development platform as it continues to&#160;grapple with external programmers&#160;who spur adoption of their applications among Facebook members through deceitful and abusive practices.Facebook has been battling this problem since May, when it opened its social-networking site to third-party developers interested in building applications for it.Chief among the annoyances have been self-promotion features in applications such as bulk unsolicited e-mails and intrusive message displays. Although&#160;Facebook has made several changes&#160;in past months, the problems persist.On Jan. 1, a Facebook official made an official blog posting titled &quot;New Year. New Rules&quot; in which he states that some developers have been sneakily bypassing the amount of e-mail notifications applications are allowed to send.&quot;Specifically, these developers have been sending notification e-mails to users for one application with another application, in order to &#39;pool&#39; the total quota of e-mail notifications together,&quot; wrote Dave Morin, Facebook&#39;s senior platform manager.In addition, other applications have been designed to trick Facebook members into inadvertently installing other applications by placing links into e-mail messages, internal notifications and the Mini-Feed feature in member profiles.&quot;Starting today, we&#39;ll begin blocking links in Mini-Feed, Notifications, and Notification E-mails which lead to the installation of another application in the hopes that developers focus on user experience and engagement being paramount, not deceiving users for the sake of growth,&quot; Morin wrote.&#160;
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Social operating system Facebook, the mainstream media web darling du jour, has opened up its development platform to allow other firms to develop applications to run on top of the site, broadening the range of features available to users.â¦
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The two companies confirm their partnership, with Microsoft taking a $240 million stake in Facebook as well as gaining the right to sell ads for Facebook internationally.
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InfoWorld - Facebook will sell a $240 million minority stake to Microsoft, which as part of the deal will also expand the advertising services it provides to the social networking phenom, the companies said Wednesday in a statement.
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MicrosoftWatch: The Redmond software firm is set to make available more of its code under an open-source license on Tuesday. Microsoft is preparing to release a third piece of code under an open-source license
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Facebook, a social-networking site that has become an open development platform, announced Thursday that it purchased startup Parakey for an undisclosed amount. The company, started by Mozilla Firefox cofounders Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt, has been creating products to unify and integrate desktop applications and the Web.
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Blog: Facebook acquired Parakey, a web OS startup created by Firefox's co-founders.