As I pointed out last time, Facebook profiles have undergone a pretty big renovation. This is a part of their “drive” to filter out the noise and make profiles less cluttered and more usable. Back then, the page looked terribly white-washed, with the layout feeling stretched and spread out beyond what looks naturally aesthetic. Probably it’s because I’ve grown used to seeing all my content in a narrow strip down the centre of the screen. Attempt at making use of all the screen real estate is good, but there are a few more things that I find mighty interesting.

The new look

The design has been further changed from last time. It at least looks slightly more colourful this time around thanks to Facebook’s “import” feature (which is like a life-stream generated from various services over the web), but White and a smoke-y Gray continue to dominate the colour combination. The layout is in tatters at certain points, but that’s probably because it’s still in testing and not ready for mass consumption.

The decision to go with tabs is a smart one, because it finally allows the user to decide which applications and what information should get top most priority. After all, your profile page is a reflection on you, right? I hope they allow some kind of colour schemes (aesthetically pleasing, not like MySpace) to allow that final “personal touch”.

Personal User Info

The user information has been pushed to the second tab, and it contains all your information. From Education/Work to your favourite artists, movies, television shows and books. These are still the applications that exist in the original design. They can moved around and edited based on how you want to focus attention. There currently seems to be no way to add more applications than the ones already there by default to the first two tabs, which is a little odd because award winning apps like the “Extended Information” application should actually belong to this tab.

The third tab is all your photos, and is simply an extension of your “View photos of ” action link under your profile picture in the current design. There is a nice sliding effect when you click over to the next or previous list of photos, and shows the sites slow move towards a reload-less interface.

Boxes

Finally the tab that all “developers” will be looking at very closely. It is candidly called “Boxes” (I hope they change it before release) and contains all the profile boxes of the applications you have added. They can be edited, moved around, and follow the same wide-narrow layout convention offered in the current design. I like the idea of grouping all the applications in one tab, but I don’t like the idea of not being able to move applications around to other tabs. They need to reconsider that decision, otherwise people will probably never click through to the fourth tab (yes, applications are pushed to the last tab, and Facebook calls themselves developer friendly) and hence never get to see the applications that a user has added. That will be a serious loss to the developers. Either that, or Facebook is trying to promote heavier use of the canvas pages (standalone page offered to every application for proper functionality) by discouraging developers from pushing content to the profile boxes.

Ultimately, this will see reduced activity via the profile boxes, and increased interaction on the canvas pages. Users have complained being forced into inviting other users before they could proceed beyond a certain level on the canvas pages, but this move shows Facebook’s confidence in being able to restrict that behaviour. We’ll see how this ultimately pans out.

The overall judgement

The view from a few step backwards shows that the new design is an evolutionary step forward. It’s not a rash decision on the part of Facebook, but it definitely is one that will make developers and application companies stop and re-evaluate all the methods they’ve been using for viral adoption and distribution of their application. Slide backed down because of these future changes, because they know any application not already gone viral will have a hard time breaking the shell Facebook is building around user’s profiles. I’m just glad we won’t have any more of the “FunWall” type applications. Those are just pathetic.

Secondly, and this is the most important thing, the deal with the tabs. All these tabs are asynchronously loaded. Speed might be one issue, but the other issue is (quite plainly) the case of screen scraping. Facebook is obviously trying to avoid scraping by dividing the information among tabs that will only load asynchronously, and hence, scrapers cannot get access to anything other than the static data (which is the profile picture and the friend list on the left). Smart move, definitely, on Facebook’s part, because this will stop bots from harvesting information about you without your permission. More security means less worries.

What I’d like to see

More colour.

Not at the levels of MySpace, but definitely other monochrome combinations to go with the White-Gray. Something to differentiate profiles and not make all of them (a rather drab) Blue. Personalisation options are always popular, and allowing people to decorate their pages will be awesome. Maybe something like iGoogle themes (which again, suck) but nicer.

Secondly, I’d like to see application information shown to the “user”, not just the developer. And by information, I mean emphasis on things like the various fields requested by an application using API calls. This could list out things like how many times an application has requested for the friends list, or your personal information. How many times has it updated your profile box. What actions cause change to your profile box, and more things like that. What this will do is allow a user to judge for themselves if an application is requesting data relevant to it’s subject. If a quotes application (like mine) begins to request your marital status, you should become suspicious and report it to Facebook, which they can take up with the developers. This policing is required, because as has been shown many times (and in a rather douche-y way) on the web, all your information is actually at risk the moment you add an application. As long as you don’t know how an application is interacting with your details, you are at risk. This will be the first step in removing that.

So here’s to a better Facebook experience!

Boy does it look ugly, except for some parts. A more detailed write-up later in the day.

Selena Frye for TechRepublic:

We’ve seen the rapid rise of Facebook; are we going to see it die just as quickly as it burst in to life?

Short and sweet? No.

Quite simply because social networking websites come and go. There have been too many to mention and eventually people get bored with them and move on to something new.

Name me one network that innovated but still died. People get bored when there is nothing new. Keep innovating, and people will stay. Also, how many social networks out there have changed the way we look at the service itself?

Ever seen developers join a network? Facebook got thousands of developers to join in on the application development fun, and promised them very tangible (and real) revenue streams. Those applications, while annoying, are also a reason people are drawn to Facebook (believe it or not).

How about people like Robert Scoble and Michael Arrington? Facebook boasts the most elite group of users of any other social network. That’s not by fluke.

Five percent fewer people in the UK visited Facebook in January than in the previous month. That’s 400,000 people who decided not to log on any more.

Zuckerberg has something else to say.

I’ve had three or four friends tell me they’ve left Facebook in the past few weeks.

When you have millions, three or four doesn’t make a difference. Plus, consider what value those users were adding to Facebook. The common user doesn’t do jack. A developer, on the other hand, is an asset. I left Orkut to be on Facebook full-time. Instead of sharing my identity in multiple places, I pull in everything out of Facebook for others. There are others like me, and if they leave, Facebook will lose actual ‘users’¹.

One of the biggest complaints was the pointless garbage generated in bulk by applications-someone throws a chicken at all of their friends, someone else sends a video and so on.

And yet these same applications have 3 million+ users. The blasphemy!

Facebook was great as a way of keeping in touch with your friends. They should have kept it simple-friends, photos, groups and messaging. What more does a social networking site need?

If they had, we would have probably never even heard of a Facebook. If we had, the complaint would have been the overly simplistic approach and ‘nothing-new’ syndrome. If you’re bugged by applications, Facebook has actively taken steps to make sure people are not spammed invites. What more does a user need?

Unfortunately I think Facebook is doomed to the same fate as MySpace which saw 14% of its UK users disappear over the past three months. I bet Yahoo are glad they didn’t pay $1 billion for it!

If Yahoo! had, Microsoft would be investing in them, not buying them flat-out. MySpace is losing people (even though it’s the biggest network out there) because there is nothing new. They are playing catch-up to Facebook, and the general un-organised, un-restricted usage of “profile” pages is a major immediate turn-off! People get bored of that kind of stuff.

Facebook and social networking is not dying, and never will. The more new ways of connected you give to people, the more they’ll use it. Every new concept is a trial-and-error. If it strikes, you pat yourself and think of something new. If it doesn’t, you fix it until it strikes. Facebook has taken more risks with the concept of “social networking” than anyone, and they’ve reached where they have because of it.

Past few days, what with the Robert Scoble incident, and then the post incident stuff, things have been under fire for Facebook, but more importantly, the case for ‘open-data’ has been growing stronger. People suddenly want access to their data outside Facebook¹, which is a little blind sighting the fact that it’s because people run rampant with their habits on Facebook, they have had to take measures to keep things under control.

The bane of all things great

Security.

It’s the one thing that drives any database. Especially if it’s a database which contains info about every move you’ve ever made. Facebook is such a database. People post pictures from parties, put up their relationship status’, say and do things, in short, run completely amok with their new found identity online. There is a big reason why people feel comfortable doing so.

Privacy. Facebook has some of the most complicated privacy features I’ve ever seen in any service. Its concept of relationships is to be marvelled at, and unfortunately, it’s those same concepts and complications that make it hard to decide who can get what data out of Facebook about who.

Sure, the F8 platform is there, and for those who want to take the time and effort to use it, will get almost any data that they want — this being again decided by how the two people are related. But let’s have a look at some statistics:

According to Adonomics, there are about 60 million active users in the past 30 days. Averaging that, means 2 million a day. There are currently 168,000+ developers. That’s just about 8.4% of the actual daily population visiting Facebook. We all know there are much more than 2 million users.

Those of us who add applications, know that we add them without thinking twice. People like me who know exactly what kind of applications they want, are more cautious, but about 90% of the population isn’t. Which means that all the applications they’ve added, have access to pretty much all the data there is on Facebook about them. This is bad enough. Imagine an application having access to the data of all the friends of this person as well, their friends, how they’re related. What if the friends didn’t want this data available? This moves towards a privacy issue out of Facebook’s hands. And they can’t let that happen, especially with having faced flak for the same in the past.

Why just Facebook?

Google joined the workgroup as well, with their Orkut. I personally think of Orkut as a social-cobweb, not so much as a network. There have been enough reports of fake profiles, terrorist activities, stalking and what not on this one network alone. It’s like privacy never even existed. Unless things have changed since I stopped using it, making your data publicly available outside Orkut doesn’t really change anything for you. You were as exposed back then as you are now.

However, that is the perfect example of what happens when privacy deteriorates. OpenSocial, is a mess. Not even close to complete, and the screencast of it being demo-ed showed how non-game-changing it’ll actually be when it is released, probably a year from now.

Surprisingly, I don’t see other (big) social-networks like MySpace, Bebo, Friendster rushing to join up and kick some dirt up. Except for MySpace, it doesn’t matter really. But MySpace joining making things open will make things interesting, sure.

Finally, making data available is always a good thing. One might say that if you don’t want people to know something, don’t put it up on the web. But people should be free to put up whatever they want. It’s up to the network to give them enough tools and features to decide who gets to see those things. That’s what differentiates a good network from a mediocre one.

Biggies like Facebook have always been on the right track, and the users have accepted everything that has come their way. Now that they’ve joined DataPortability, I don’t how much of a difference it’ll make. I’m very sure that they will never release ‘all’ their data about you for other services to harvest and use. After all, you should still want to go back to Facebook. But I guess they saw this step coming, and it’ll be interesting to see how things change in the coming months.

Bumped into this article. I really do feel sorry for the Wired writers.

Where Facebook’s platform provides a proprietary programming language for developers to build applications that run inside the site (so you can send you friends a fresh pair of virtual diapers or whatever), LinkedIn has created a platform in the sense of what the word used to mean — a way of mixing, mashing, repurposing and sharing your data. Think Flickr, not Facebook.

This is rich. So, if Facebook doesn’t allow the data to be pulled off it’s site, applications like iLike and DivShare must be inventing all the data that they keep flashing around. Or even something as simple as my Photos2RSS must be doing something very very illegal.

As an example of the second half of LinkedIn’s new platform, the company has announced a partnership with Business Week which will see LinkedIn data pulled into the Business Week site … Call it six degrees of Business Week, but it does something Facebook has yet to do — it connects your data with the larger web.

And what is Facebook’s beacon supposed to be an attempt at? Sure, it is data coming in, not going out; but the final result is the same. All your doings and workings from everywhere on the Internet comes to Facebook, and they make it available through F8 for anyone who wants the data (for the people who have allowed it to be shared).

Many of the gritty details about the new APIs haven’t been released yet, but we can tell you that the LinkedIn platform uses REST-based APIs and will have access to data like your profile, your network, other LinkedIn profiles, network feeds and more.

And Facebook has done nothing of this sort! Those bastards!

However, all applications will need to approved by LinkedIn, so it’s more likely we’ll see useful stuff like conference calendars or job listing apps than virtual drink swapping.

Exactly what we signed up on Facebook for! To look for jobs, colleges and schools. Who wants friends … we’re trying to build a resumé here!

LinkedIn may lack some of the buzz and magazine cover hype of Facebook, but kudos to LinkedIn for taking inspiration from APIs like Flickr’s rather than the much touted, but still essentially useless, Facebook platform.

Forgetting the fact that Facebook’s platform literally created employment, if used correctly, it is the perfect repository of data when you are looking for info on a person. Wasn’t it only a few months ago that Facebook profiles were being snooped and scrutinized for details on potential employees which are usually hidden for the sake of an image?

I actually see these two platforms working in perfect harmony with each other. Facebook holds all the details (made publicly available) about a person’s social life, and LinkedIn holds information about their professional life. Bring these two together, and you have your identity completed to share with others. There’s no point in comparing the two, and actually blasting the F8 platform. They both do their job well. It’s how one uses the data that makes the difference.

It’s been just about more than a year (if I’m correct) since the release of F8, Facebook’s platform for developers to create ‘social’ applications which Facebook users can add to their profiles and make merry. Just about more than a year later, a browse through the top 10 applications (ranked by use) shows the problem. Well, not so much of a problem; considering there is nothing wrong, but more of a worry. Atleast for me.

You see it? No?

Utterly useless

Not more than 2% of the applications have any ‘use’ value. The only part of Facebook ‘from’ Facebook they use is the userbase. Not their details. Them. These applications are trying to come up with any little excuse to make people invite more people to use them. Take ‘SuperWall’ or ‘FunWall’ for example.

These two applications do ‘nothing’ more than what the native Facebook Wall does not. The only difference? There is no difference! It’s just that people don’t know that their wall can do all those things, and more. And yet, they are top of the list, ranks one and two respectively.

What makes them tick

It seems people flock towards applications that are ‘fun’. Not necessarily useful. Application makersI’ll not call them developers, since they’re just coding; not really developing anything seem to understand this, and are resorting to making their applications dumber, and dumber so that it appeals to the common person. I can give you proof with my very own applications here.

I have three:

1. So much to do!: This is a simple to-do list tracking application, which allows you to make lists, and show it those lists on your profile.
2. Photos2RSS: This allows you to get photos from anywhere in Facebook as feed (RSS/JSON), which can be further used anywhere feeds can be used.
3. Thought for the day: Another simple application to show a ‘thought’ or a quote on your profile. It also lets you tag quotes as favourites, and share them with friends.

Take a quick guess as to the order of ranks based on number of users of those applications. Answer’s at the end of the post.

So, to come back to the point I was making. I don’t know what Zuckerberg’s main motive was to creating the platform, and allowing people to develop applications on it. Maybe this ‘was’ what he wanted. Maybe it isn’t. But on thing is for sure. This defininitely undermines the genius behind the technical proficiency of F8. I can only begin to imagine the kind of work that has gone into it, and the amount of effort that goes into it everyday for maintainence and cleanup. The use it has been put to till date, doesn’t even begin to do justice to it.

Sure, it got more users to Facebook. It added value to your profile, and increased the worth of every user. But from a broader perspective, it hasn’t added ‘anything’ at all to Facebook in itself. There is no application which will make people join Facebook, because it’s true potential is only visible when you use it on the social level.

I’m currently making another application. I’ll be all hush hush about it until I’m ready to release it. It only grazes the ideas I’ve touched here, because honestly, it ‘will’ take some serious brain racking to be able to come up with a concept like that. If someone can, it should be worthy of a job at Facebook itself.

Eitherways, valued at $15 billion plus, Facebook will make him a rich guy ;)

The answer

As far as the answer to the question in the post goes, it’s:

1. Thought for the day
2. So much to-do!
3. Photos2RSS

What did you think? The geek app will have most users? Phsshh… You obviously didn’t read the post properly :P

Checking today (‘today’ being the second day of this application being included in the application repository), I see 400+ users, out of which 4 are friends. These past two days have shown exactly what people meant by the Facebook ‘social graph’ and ‘viral distribution’ of applications. I noticed some applications become big time earners overnight, but a small application like my to–do list getting these many users in 2 days is very, very heartening :)

So, now I’m going to have a look at the whole Facebook development scenario:

F8 Platform

The platform, at its heart is a REST based API. You make simple calls to one URL, with the required details, and the server sends back whatever you asked for after running a few checks to see if you “can” get the data you asked for. It’s quite simple that way. There are tokens, session keys (there are two types, more later), API keys and all the regular boobah that you’re used to seeing. However, it gets interesting when you begin to move away from this REST API.

Facebook is one of the first APIs (that I’ve seen in my short stint with webdev) that offers direct access to their SQL tables. Ofcourse, they call it FQL, but the outcome is the same. You select columns, where certain conditions are matched and validated, from some tables. This not only saves time, but reduces server load, since you’re going to the heart of the data instead of being proxy–ed around.

Finally, there’s FBML, which is Facebook’s version of (X)HTML. It offers RDF–type tags which get parsed by Facebook into proper data wrapped in relevant tags. This is used when your application has a profile presence box, and you need to show stuff in it. You update it with FBML using a given function. Or if you want to show editing options for features for your app. It’s quite cool! :)

Static content is cached by Facebook for faster serving (like images, videos etc.), but most of the load is on the developers servers. All processes happen on your servers, and Facebook only acts as a mediator between your server and the user, so that they can control what comes and goes through.

The development

If you know how frameworks and APIs work, this will be familiar grounds. Even if you don’t, you can figure your way out by getting yourself the REST Clients from Facebook. It’s got functions to do everything, and all you need to do is call them. I use the PHP5 Client, but there are clients available for pretty much every major language used for Webdev today.

It’s been a breeze getting the hang of it (thanks to a lot of help from Stephen, as usual), and just having access to such huge amounts of data is amazing. With all coding projects, you have to figure out how to get around some hurdles. For example, the current system allows the authorization token to be passed to only “one” page per app. That means, you can’t call Facebook from any other page, unless you have an infinite session key to pass around. It takes some figuring out, but once you get the hang of it, you can see a pattern emerging. I personally think Facebook should allow choosing custom pages (via. a “next” query string which they use, but don’t allow access to) to which you’d like to redirect to from Facebook. But oh well …

Pretty much all workings with applications will require you to store data of some sort (if it’s a decent to good app). For that, you’ll need to know SQL if you want to work with relational tables. I use Ning at the moment, which offers a different way of storing huge amounts of data. I am adequately adept at SQL though, and plan to brush up on it since I want to move to my own hosting soon enough, and host my apps from there. You will need to know all this to make an effective application. There are workarounds, sureLike the “X Me” application, which didn’t deal with tables in the beginning, but used to constantly read the current markup in the profile box, alter it using regular expressions, and then put it back. For example, if someone would hide an action, it would set it to display:none instead of actually removing it. I got my info from the maker himself :), but I’d suggest you do it the right way.

The documentation is grossly incomplete, but then which documentation isn’t. If you want help, the Developer’s Discussion Group is always there, and people like me who can help you out. There’s also an unofficial IRC room at #facebook on irc.freenode.org. That’s a fabulous place to get info, “if” the people are in a good mood :P

Final thoughts

All in all, it’s not hard making an application for Facebook, and for people who want to start getting their hands dirty with webdev, this is probably the safest and best way to start. You don’t have to looking for data. It’s all there. All you have to do is call for it :) Also, you should be creative. Don’t try to re–invent the wheel and make something that already exists. Your app will get stifled because the other app will already have an established base. There are so many things you can make, it’s not even funny! Just rack your brains a little … ;)

So, I hope I’ve cleared things out, and hope to see someone from my readers come up with a great application for Facebook :) Let me know if you do!

(P.S. — My app users count went up to 403 while writing this article! :P That’s how quickly apps can catch on :) )

People not on Facebook probably use Flickr as their main image host, because it’s easier to share it with people, tag them, and store them safely knowing you won’t lose them. Flickr, backed by Yahoo!, has surely become an essential part of the netizen’s arsenal of web–services, no doubt that. But, as with everything, there are alternatives which though not as good, are good enough substitutes.

Facebook Photos

Facebook Photos is one of the best “organised” photo collection tool available on the Internet today in my opinion. Sure, it lacks features which people have gotten used to because of Picasa Web Albums and Flickr, but if you’re looking for a simple photo storage service, with decent sharing and commenting features, this one is for you.

The best part is, you’re not bound by features being rolled out by the provider. Applications can enhance your experience, and act as plug–ins, which brings me to the main point of this post. Let me present to you, Photos2Rss!

Photos2RSS

This was an application I wrote initially to take away my dependence on Flickr, especially since I found out the 200 image limit on the free account. The one feature which doesn’t come natively with the Photos application of Facebook is a way to get them out of Facebook. Your photos are sitting nicely in your album, but that way they’re only for your friends to see and enjoy. What if you want to share them on your blog, or some other place? Well, now there is a way …

If you’re on Facebook, add the application to your profile. The application doesn’t add a profile box or anything. It just sits pretty in your list of applications in the sidebar, and you can push it down in the ‘hide’ zone if you don’t want to see the link all the time.

Once you have it installed, it’ll take you to the album selection page. There you can select who’s albums you want to pull out as a feed. If you want a friend’s, you’ll need their UIDThat’s the 9 digit number at the end of the URL on the profile page of your friend.. Fill that in, and you’ll be presented with a list of their albums. Along with that, there are options for randomising the pictures, and a total count. You can specify these for further control on how your photos are pulled. After filling in the details, you’ll have to submit once, before choosing the feed format.

There are two feed formats available currently—RSS and JSON(P). RSS is for subscribing to someone’s albums to track it for changes. Say, your friend’s birthday pictures. Whereas JSON(P) is more for use with codes and hacks on blogs and pages. Add in the callback function name at the end and the data will be enclosed nicely in your function :)

Drawbacks and limitations

As I said, this is a little hacky, hence there are some pre–requirements, assumptions and limitations in place for this to work like it’s supposed to. To start with, the photos you want to pull out have to be part of one album, and one album alone. You can pull in photos from different albums, but not using the same feed. Well, not yet atleast. If there are enough adopters of this, I’ll add it inI’ll add it in anyways sometime in the future to find the easiest way to do it, but more users will speed up the process :P.

The second thing is, the application needs to be a part of your list, because that’s the way I’ll get an infinite session key from Facebook for the feed. If you don’t add it, the feed will fail because it’ll need to log in to get your photos out. Like I said, it doesn’t ‘add’ anything to your profile like most of the applications, so there is no clutter :) I don’t like clutter myself :P Once you add it, you can get as many feeds as you want, for as many albums as you want.

These are the only ones for now :) With more complexities, some more might creep in, but I’ll try and keep them at a minimum :)

So, I hope you find it useful, and bugs and feature suggestions as usual can be messaged, posted on the application’s wall, my wall, or in the comments here :) Enjoy!

bVibes is our very own Digg, for bloggers! Created by the elite hacker Ramani, I think it’s something the bloggerosphere needed more than the blogosphere in general. It’s about time Blogger started getting the attention it deserves, and blogs hosted at Blogger the credibility and respect they deserve.

I recently joined up, and it’s picked up quite well! Users are joining up pretty quickly, and stories are being submitted even quicker :P But as usual, enough is never enough! So now, bVibes is getting some love, Facebook style! My recent fascination with the Platform and a mail from Ramani were enough … and we now have a bVibes application for you to add to your profilesIf you’re not on Facebook yet, I suggest you start with that the moment you finish reading this post.

The application basically does what the normal Digg.com application does. It shows the stories you’ve recently voted for in a nice little box on your profile. As things are, there is a half an hour delay between new votes showing up … I might try to fix that, but I’m sure you can live with that :P You can also tell the application how many of your recently voted for stories do you want to show (Digg’s app doesn’t allow this, hah!), or a default of 5 will be enforced. The app also shows how many votes a story has :)

So, do your share of the good work. Show off the posts you think deserve attention right on your Facebook profile, where it’ll be seen by all your friends! Let them get the exposure they deserve!

All bugs, suggestions and feedback can be posted in the comments here, or messaged to me via Facebook. Enjoy!

I’ve been obsessing with Facebook for the past week because of the revelation of the new Facebook Platform. What that has in turn done is show me the intricate ways in which Facebook works. How different components come together to integrate themselves to the central goal of Facebook—to keep people connected to each other.

I think Facebook in itself is way ahead of the competition because of their goal. They aim not to have tons of users. Their userbase is a result of constant innovation. They aim to improve the networks that exist, and improve the interactions between the users of the networks. They are probably the only network which emphasizes on innovating, and I think that focus is what keeps them ahead.

Facebook Platform

Some see the platform as going against Facebook’s goal. I felt the same way when it first came out, but as time has passed, and I’ve seen the applications that have popped up, I can guess where Facebook is coming from. They’re not trying to foray into any foreign territory (even if they’ve inadvertently done so). They are trying to make Facebook the one stop destination for all it’s members to find info (about everything) about their friends and the people they know. Applications to track someone’s music, activities and calendar are some of the one’s which have popped up, with some of them becoming very popular. The popularity of applications is thanks to Facebook’s social graph, and what I like to call, the Wavefront effectHuygen’s principle states that every wavefront acts as the source of another wavelet. Applying that logic to how news feeds work, when someone adds an application, it shows up in their news–feed, bringing it to the attention to their friends. Their friends then add it, hence starting a new wavefront.. The beauty of this is that the one thing that developers spend most amount of time doing is trying to get their applications to the public. Facebook does that for them, so they can concentrate on building killer apps.

This is very tempting to someone like me, developers, who don’t have resources to consolidate data. Facebook provides the data. All we have to do is use our creativity to use that in ways we think people would want to use them. I don’t see Facebook platform as a detachment from their primary goal. I see it as a natural evolution.

Facebook bloat

Many complain about many of the features as ‘bloat’ and unnecessary, wanting to revert back to the old Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg once said:

Change can be disorienting, but we do it because we’re sure it makes the site better. It may have felt different at first, but things like photos, events, groups and the wall have all made Facebook a more useful and interesting site.

It’s our goal to provide a tool that helps people understand what’s going on with the people around them; all of our additions and changes contribute towards this goal. The new things we’re going to launch will do the same.

And all the current features achieve all this in perfect harmony with each other. I can’t imagine a Facebook without the news/mini–feed. That is truly the major thing that sets it apart. The first thing I want to see when I log in is what my friends have been upto since I last logged in. Who their new friends are, what events they’re attending, what pictures they’ve added, what groups they joined … all those things. If I have to go to each and every profile to check what they’ve been doing, it beats the whole purpose of being part of a network … the information should come to you automaticallyThere was an internal joke here in my hostel, that you remove the feeds, and all the information that Facebook gives you, and you have an Orkut!!

The reason I see the competition not being able to catch up with Fb anymore, is simply because of the path Fb chose and the path the others took. Fb declined the offer by Yahoo! simply to preserve what they had in their own vision. Networks like Orkut have become stagnant, or interfaces to integrations of different services by the parent company, which almost borders on advertisement of those services. Sure, the users are getting all the features that they’d normally want from a network, but they are not getting the ‘integrated’ experience. The different services don’t come together to work together. They are just there working in their own separate modules and cubicles. You’ll never get to know when someone (on Orkut, say) adds a new video or new photo about the party they attended last night. Fb can achieve this by putting two and two together (photos being uploaded after an event the previous day, follows a nice pattern) because the different applications are part of the mothership, and all data finally goes back to a central server, not different parts of the world. That is the key difference between in–house productions and acquisitions. But that is not the point to this…

The point becomes (or remains) that Facebook got a lot of things right, at the perfect time. It helped that the brain behind the concepts was a college kid himself, being able to get into the head of other college kids. And if Facebook continues the same way, there is no–way their getting dethroned as the best social network to be a part of (because it’s just plain and simple cool!)!