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June 25, 2007
Facebook: Evolving beyond being “Just a Social Network”
Something significant has been happening over at Facebook ever since they opened up their APIs. The result of which is that Facebook is now quickly becoming a new destination Internet Portal which people actually want to spend time inside of.
As more and more software developers integrate their applications with Facebook, Facebook has become that much more valuable…especially when the third-party applications add to the overall end user experience. It might have been a moment of sheer Genius or Madness when the Facebook team decided to open up their APIs, but WOW!. By doing so, Facebook has moved itself up in the ecosystem and is quickly becoming something even bigger than it ever was.
When friends of mine who are not into social networking decided to join the Facebook community and are inspired to think about how to best leverage Facebook as a platform, I take notice.
Will a mass immigration of non-students to Facebook mean that there will be some fallout and push back from the core community of people who have been there from the start? Maybe. And by the way, how can it be that something that is cool for kids can also be cool for adults? I am not so sure. But there is fallout, it might be a small price to pay in order to transform Facebook to where it may be headed.
There is an interactive element to Facebook which just adds to the experience. During the past week there have been times when I found it easier to send message to a friend inside of Facebook than having to look up their number to SMS them or their email to drop them an email. I suspect that this will only happen more often.
Is Facebook the “new” AOL? I’m not sure.
Facebook might not ( yet) be the “new” AOL, but it does seem to be evolving beyond being “just a social network.” And maybe, just maybe if AOL had the feature set of Facebook, including their very engaged developer community, AOL would be better positioned to become what it really wants to be.
Tags: facebook, AOL, Jeff Pulver
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Posted by jeff on June 25, 2007 08:16 AM | Permalink
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Posted by: injection molding at June 16, 2009 10:21 AM
I signed up some months ago and didn't use it much, but there's really much more buzz to Facebook in the last few weeks. The API documentation needs a bit more effort, but the potential for Facebook apps is great.
Posted by: Martyn Davies at June 27, 2007 09:38 AM
Very interesting comparison Jeff. Your comments struck me as to the real similarities of how we are embracing everything "social" going through Facebook and does that turn Facebook into the AOL of earlier days. And does the open API platform fundamentally make the "garden" approach different where everything is found in one place?
Posted by: Lou Paglia at June 27, 2007 06:34 AM
It is an interesting time, and while school is out, there are more people that are non-college students that are joining.
We'll have to wait until August/September to see the fall-out.
But, I think it also says that there is still life in a portal strategy. ;)
Posted by: Jeremy Pepper at June 25, 2007 09:48 PM
the API phenomena on facebook will only continue if FB decides to share the love (=$$$) with the application builders. otherwise, the application builders will quickly realize that other than building equity value into FB... they are not really helping their own companies...
Posted by: Amit Shafrir at June 25, 2007 05:46 PM
I think Facebook is just the New, New Next Thing. Facebook's fast growth curve stayed even during the month the APIs were added. I don't think it is the API's. Comments from a heavy Facebook user is that the API's don't work well (iLike, etc). My commenter likes Facebook for "communicating" with his friends as he does on MySpace. I thought there would be a bump in the speed of growth as some hyped but if you look at the numbers it is just continued to smoothly curve upwards as it has been doing. Facebook is just moving onto the beach from early adopter to the more conservative mainstream and it is getting a lot more press and mass. Also, it didn't hurt that Murdoch was spending a lot of focused time with Mark Zuckerberg, the founder, at the May Murdoch digital meeting. Jeff Jarvis took notice as I am sure others did as well.
Posted by: Barlow Keener at June 25, 2007 02:10 PM
i agree regarding the comparison to AOL, but the key difference is the openness of facebook.
the college kids already spent most of their online time in facebook. that's where they blog, site-mail, share photos, etc.
i doubt that it would serve a similar purpose for other demographics, but i think it could possibly serve as the #1 social network for young adults.
myspace, linkedin should be the first to be scared from this development.
Posted by: avner ronen at June 25, 2007 12:08 PM
I'm getting into Facebook too. Very interesting watching the surges of people...
Posted by: Joi Ito at June 25, 2007 09:40 AM