How to get funding for your Facebook idea
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Blog: Bay Partners is launching a special program for Facebook entrepreneurs.
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Facebook will help other social networking sites to run applications developed for its own software platform, it said Thursday.The company already encourages developers to build applications that work with its site, publishing details of the tags and APIs (application programming interfaces) needed to exchange data.Now it plans to license those details for use by other social networking sites and platforms, according to the Facebook Developers blog . The idea is that developers will only have to write their widget or small application once if there is a common platform for structuring how the applications integrate with sites.The initiative runs in parallel with Google&#39;s OpenSocial project, which revolves around creating standard APIs (application programming interfaces) for social networking applications. APIs let applications exchange information and are crucial to building programs that, for example, take information from Facebook profiles and blend it with some new functionality or feature.Facebook already has a taker. On Wednesday, social networking site Bebo said it would use Facebook&#39;s standards for its own Open Application Platform. Bebo isn&#39;t taking sides, however: it will eventually support Google&#39;s OpenSocial too, it said.MySpace, the largest social networking site, has also said it will support OpenSocial.Facebook said its architectural platform is composed in part of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) related tags and methods for building applications.It published details of FBML , its set of tags for formatting data exchanged between applications and users. Some of the tags enable developers to build programs with the same design elements as Facebook&#39;s site, so the application blends in.External developers have created about 7,000 applications since Facebook opened up its site in June. The applications have offered a commercial opportunity for developers, although Facebook has been under fire for how those programs respect users&#39; privacy.Google&#39;s OpenSocial platform got off the ground last month with Plaxo&#39;s Pulse, the first application to use the APIs. Pulse, which aggregates and delivers new information from social networking and other Web sites, is a feature of Plaxo&#39;s Web-based address book service.&#160;
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People can make their own Facebook applications, and now Widgetbox users can make them faster with App Accelerator, a new Web-based helper tool. CNET Editor Jessica Dolcourt tested it out with her very own Webware application for Facebook.
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Looking for ways to feather your nest egg? We have some ideas.
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Facebook Inc. is offering to pay up to $250,000 to software developers who create applications that help make its rapidly growing online social network an even more compelling Internet hangout.
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Want to get paid for all those frags? Here's how to do it.
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I'm looking for ideas, established practices, do's and don'ts for sponsoring an open source project.  An upfront caveat -- this is not an actual offer. It's totally hypothetical. If I make the offer it will be done in some other more formal way.  The project: I want the OPML Editor to run on Linux. I don't want to hire someone to do this project, rather I want to offer a reward when the project is completed.  The source code is already released under the GPL, in versions for Mac OS X and Windows. Of course Mac OS is a flavor of Unix, but the internal API is quite different, I imagine, from Linux. I'm not looking for elegance, I'm looking for functionality. I don't care how the port is done, just that it be maintainable, and then be released (of course) under the GPL.  Personally, I think the most likely way to get this done quickly is to compile the code under WINE, using the Windows version of the code, and then go back and connect up the Unix system calls, so that all the Unix related verbs work. (Note the OPML Editor is actually a rich programming environment, despite its diminutive name. It's an instance of UserLand Frontier, which goes back to 1988.) To me, it would be worth $10,000 to have the OPML Editor running reliably on Linux, because then all the projects I've built and am building would then automatically run on Linux. Now I'm not saying that the project can be done for that amount of money (it's possible that it can), but I also don't feel I should be the only person funding the project. And maybe it's enough of a prize to incentivize someone or a group to do it. Now, of course, I see problems. Since it's an open source project, how will I know who to give the reward to if the goal is met. It might be the result of the work of a group of people. If so, I think they would have to figure out among themselves how to split the reward. On the other hand, I don't see any movement right now to port the codebase to Linux, so maybe if someone is interested in the project, you should do it on your own, and just present the results. If it works, then it seems you would be entitled to the reward. I seem to remember people proposing groupware systems for creating these kinds of projects, a few years ago. Not sure if they came to fruition, for all I know there could be an eBay for open source programming projects. If you have any information to share on this, please post a comment here, and thanks in advance.
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BREAKING NEWS - This afternoon, Microsoft won the apparent battle for an equity stake in social networking applications provider Facebook, making a $240 million equity investment in the company. In exchange, Microsoft will become the exclusive third-party supplier of Facebook's advertising platform.
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(InfoWorld) - Wi-fi startup Fon Technology SL has secured an additional â¬10 million (US$13.1 million) in funding for its plan to establish a global network of shared hotspots, the company said Friday. The funding came from new and previous investors, which have included Google Inc., Skype Ltd., Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital Operations LLC, Fon said. The new investors were not named. Index and Sequoia invested â¬18 million in Fon in February 2006. Based in Madrid, Spain, Fon provides routers that let home Wi-fi users share their broadband Internet connections with others, and then tap into those other users' connections for free when they are on the road. Fon's router let users divide how much bandwidth they will share. It broadcasts two Wi-fi signals, one for shared use and a secure, encrypted one for private use. In the U.S., the "La Fonera" router costs $39.95. Those who use one to share their Wi-fi can surf on other Fon hotspots for free, otherwise the cost accessing the Fon network is â¬3 or $3 a day. Fon said it has doubled the number of Wi-fi access points in the last two months to 120,000. The new funds will go to building up Fon's user community, which numbers 320,000 members, said spokeswoman Tania Cavada. More specific plans will be released later, she said. Fon has partnered with Skype to provide wi-fi coverage for users of mobile Skype. It has also partnered with ISPs (Internet service providers) and the social networking site Bebo Inc. Â
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Eurekster, Inc., which wasone of the first community based social search engines, has secured $5.5 million in a Series B financing. The funding, from Technology Venture Partners (TVP) of Australia and Transcosmos Investments of Japan with the participation of the private investors who provided the company&#8217;s initial Series A financing, will enable Eurekster to accelerate [...]
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Blog: Popular social-networking site makes its first buy: Parakey, a Web start-up created by Firefox's co-founders.
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Facebook is on the block and bidders can't flunk out this time.
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To justify its $15 billion valuation, Facebook has its work cut out for it. Step 1: Try to figure out how to make money from its 50 million users. A lot hangs on a new ad network, expected Nov. 6.
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Wallop, a startup spun out of Microsoft Corp.'s research lab, is launching the test version of an online social networking site with the premise that people will want to pay extra to look good.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has approached FacebookÂ in recent weeks proposing an investment that would give Microsoft a stake of up to 5 percent in the popular social-networking company, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. With Microsoft willing to invest between $300 million and $500 million, the deal would value Facebook at $10 billion or more, the Journal reported, quoting anonymous sources. Google has also expressed an interest in acquiring a Facebook stake recently, according to the Journal. Thus, Microsoft could find itself competing for Facebook's attention with Google. However, Facebook's discussions with Google and Microsoft are in the early stages and could end up with no agreement with either suitor, according to the Journal. IDG News Service's requests for comment from Facebook, Microsoft, and Google weren't immediately answered. Founded in February 2004, Facebook is one of the world's most popular social-networking sites with about 42 million active users. Facebook has been growing strongly in the past 12 months. In December, it had about 12 million active users. The site initially only admitted students, but last September it lifted that restriction. In May of this year, itÂ opened up to third-party developersÂ to create applications for the site, which has also added to its popularity with users. Along the way, it has caught the attention of big Internet playersÂ such asÂ Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo. The latter reportedly tried to buy Facebook last year for $1 billion. Facebook's attractiveness is that it builds very strong and deep relationships with its users.Â More thanÂ half of its active members return to the site daily, and Facebook knows a lot about them, thanks to all the personal information people disclose on their site profiles and interactions with other members. This, in turn, offers a desirable audience to advertisers and to ad sellers and distributorsÂ such asÂ Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. A little more than a year ago,Â Facebook chose Microsoft to display banner adsÂ on the site. Facebook would be interested in using the cash raised from selling a stake for buying other companies, increasing its staff of about 300, and beefing up its technical infrastructure, the Journal reported. Facebook is also weighing the option of raising funds from financial investors, the Journal said.
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Social networking site Facebook has bought internet start-up Parakey.
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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.