Facebook will never be the same.
It’s been a busy few weeks for the Zuck’ and his crew. First Facebook rolled out Marketplace, adding a Craigslist-like classifieds feature to the entire network. Talk about trouble for your local sales. Then, after much anticipation of such a move, Facebook publicly announced the launch of Facebook Platform.
As I’ve said elsewhere on the Internet, Facebook execs will either grow to love this day or wish it never happened.
For those of you wondering what exactly this means, it’s almost impossible to tell. The jist of the technical news is that Facebook is now allowing developers (anyone with a Facebook account, really) to develop “programs” that users can load into their Facebook profiles. This allows developers to fully integrate their tools into the site, and in turn users’ profiles.
Oh, there’s major money-making potential here for businesses. But what about news outlets? What about college newspapers fighting against Facebook for attention?
Will this “trash up” user profiles like MySpace add-ons do? Will it turn Facebook too commerical for students looking to merely “hang out.” After all, this is still the a social networking space … right?
Who will be the first college media outlet to utilize this feature? I’m eager to see what the creative minds develop …
on May 26th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
I like the new changes. You can junk it up, but there isn’t a way to inject any HTML code so that means nothing like MySpace to deliberately inject malicious code. It may become too much but it will allow for a little more lee way on the showing your life online. The addition of Twitter is great along w/ some of the other stuff. But it may end up to where people get a little too over whelmed with all the content but in the end I think the addition was much requested and a good idea.
Most of the additions were valid ones like Twitter or iLike, which are more mature networking services. I think the exposure for those sites will be much needed and much enjoyed by the Facebook community.
on May 28th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
I agree. I don’t see how Facebook’s classifieds are going to compete with Craigslist, considering how a national approach does not come close to the locked up power of the 289 local craigslist. I have done extensive analysis using GIS and demographic data, and have come to the conclusion that anyone implementing a classified system is making a big mistake if they do it nationwide. People want to target ads, even if they want to post to multiple CL websites to reach a certain demographic. It might be done with instinct, or using data like what I have on my site. In any event, I don’t give Facebook long in that arena anyway. The users will bolt to another site if it has too much hint of commercialism. That is why it is almost impossible to take traffic away from Craigslist; Craig does not make $$$$ (atleast much) from his huge site(s).
on May 29th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
I’m not sure what I think about Facebook’s apps. I remember my roommate making the comment that once Facebook opened to the public it essentially became MySpace without the music. Well, so much for that.
I’ve glanced through some of the apps. Most I won’t use. I don’t need to share music and videos via Facebook. On the other hand, I might implement stuff for delicious and twitter.
Hopefully, this doesn’t mean Facebook goes the way of MySpace’s “hey, let’s have a contest for worst HTML design ever.” Once that happens, I’d jump ship.