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June 28, 2007
Facebook: The Internet Portal for 2007
It seems that my recent blog post: Facebook: Evolving beyond being “Just a Social Network” resonated with a number of people based on the comments, follow up blog posts and the few offline conversations that I have had this week.
As new applications are made available to members of the Facebook community, each day, the value of the Facebook platform just increases. And unlike the AOL of the past which was a “Walled Garden”, this “new AOL” may have walls, but because of the Facebook API, their Walls are open. This represents a BIG difference.
And while my friend Amit Shafir makes the point: “the API phenomena on Facebook will only continue if Facebook decides to share the love (=$$$) with the application builders. Otherwise, the application builders will quickly realize that other than building equity value into Facebook... they are not really helping their own companies.”, there is more than side side to this discussion.
In fact earlier today while chatting in Facebook with Dean Elwood, he wrote: "Regarding Facebook as an application platform, it's not just about $$ for application developers - there is a massive viral branding opportunity here right now... I believe we'll see lots of startups using Facebook to build their own brand by attempting to create the killer Facebook application, which may or may not integrate with their own product."
One thing is clear. That Facebook has moved up in the ecosystem and what was once just a social network for college students has evolved into something else. And if you are AOL or Yahoo! how could you not be chomping at the bit for the opportunity to find a way to make Facebook your own? Facebook has the characteristics for what an “Internet Portal” needs to be in 2007.
The next twelve months should be a very interesting ride for the co-founders and investors in Facebook. A year from now, do you think Facebook is still a private company or did they go public and/or did they get acquired? And if you are the ones who acquired them, do you change your name to benefit from the Facebook brand?
Tags: facebook, AOL, Jeff Pulver
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Posted by jeff on June 28, 2007 07:27 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Jeff,
Nice blog post, thanks for sharing.
Actually some of your data can be pulled out of facebook and made into other compelling applications outside of facebook. You just have not seen many of them yet. ;)
You are correct in saying that the walls are open and that is a BIG difference. We are just seeing the tip of the iceberg for useful facebook application integrations and the ways to monetize, leverage, extend brands, engage users, and a whole lot more. Freestanding apps within facebook can also potentially be quite useful for many business purposes and use cases.
These are exciting times for users and developers and we watch this unfold before our eyes.
We are rating and reviewing facebook applications as to help facebook users separate the wheat from the chaff at http://www.facereviews.com
Cheers!
rodney Rumford
Posted by: Rodney Rumford at June 29, 2007 05:55 AM
The phrase is chomping at the bit, not chopping at the bid.
Posted by: S at June 28, 2007 01:00 PM
Julian makes a valid point, but as I wrote today in my blog - http://flatplanetphone.com/wordpress/?p=249, why would you want to extend out if you have everything you need in FB? I am tired of managing multiple networking platforms, aren't you?
Posted by: Moshe Maeir at June 28, 2007 12:58 PM
And yet, and yet, FB is a one way trap door for your data. You can put your whole life in there, but you can never get it out again. The API is all about helping people build function into the FB portal, not about helping them build tools to extend it on the outside. Look at the Twitter community Wiki (http://twitter.pbwiki.com) for an example of another way to do this.
Posted by: Julian Bond at June 28, 2007 08:47 AM