I spent some time last week at the jam-packed launch of f8, which platform has now been pushed live to the Facebook site. (My sister's wedding madness unfortunately kept me from getting online to post until now!) Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg (Flickr photo by phil-it) focused on Facebook's 'social graph' as the reason that Facebook has enjoyed success. Zuckerberg is thinking ambitiously - he believes that just as the launch of the Web browser served to catalyze the growth of the Internet, Facebook's f8 platform will catalyze the growth of social applications.
Because of the social graph, the company evangelizes its platform as inherently viral, as it leverages the existing social network on Facebook. With the end of social networks as closed platforms, new opportunities can open for everyone. Developers can build on top of the social graph within the Facebook framework, and business managers can leverage new revenue or distribution channels. Here are the salient points:
Points of strategic interest
- Deep integration into site. Third-party vendors can now present their application as a box on the Facebook profile page, and publish content to feeds. This looks seamless within the Facebook interface. Publishers can also integrate 'canvas' pages that are linked to through profiles; these canvas pages can be generated dynamically, include any application functionality you want, and be as numerous as you want.
- Access to viral, networked distribution. Mass distribution has been exposed through f8. Third parties can use profile exposure, notifications, and requests to leverage the Facebook social graph for both viral and networked distribution.
- New business opportunities. Best of all, publishers are allowed to make money on canvas pages. If you run ads on them, it's your revenue - Facebook doesn't take a cut. Canvas pages can also be used to run direct transactions, again with no cut to Facebook. The company markets that this will increase conversions, since you won't need to direct users away from Facebook in order to run the transaction. (Note: Zuckerberg also mentioned that Facebook likes that the extra pages will create more inventory for them, which implies that Facebook will be putting their own ads onto the canvas pages.)
Functional highlights
- Feeds. Three kinds of feeds can be published - add application stories,
one-line headers, and full stories. You can send messages to users, and embed
content inside of messages.
- Custom integration and layout. Facebook made some changes to how the site works - now users can
add/delete/organize layout of applications on a custom basis, rather
than having to maintain a profile that presents all of them in a preset
template.
- Personalization. Canvas pages know who is using the site, and so all aspects of
an application can be personalized. If a user grants permission to an
application, then information from their profile will get passed to the
application. In order to grant permission, the user provides
authorization by adding the app to their profile, or by clicking on the
app where it is exposed on a friend's profile.
- Facebook Markup. 'Facebook markup' is a new markup language that they've created. It's basically HTML, with some extra tags that provide for dynamic information, conditional privacy, image caching, and 'safe mode' flash. There's even a 'friend selector' tag that drives notifciations and requests functionality.
Partner commentary
- Microsoft's Dan'l Lewin is psyched about the potential for additional exposure and leverage of the miles of data that Facebook collects on all of its users.
- Russ Grandinetti from Amazon.com picked up on the theme of community development, as well as (naturally) the opportunity to sell Amazon S3 services to Facebook platform developers.
- Slide founder Max Levchin was excited about the potential for Facebook to be reborn as a social operating system.
