Facebook Now Open to Enterprising Developers

by Andrew McAfee on May 30, 2007

On May 24, Facebook (the intriguing social network site I wrote about in my previous post) announced that it was opening up its platform to outside developers, allowing them to build applications that were deeply integrated with the Facebook user experience. We can expect, of course, that most of the new applications will be as social —  as oriented toward sharing information, watching what others are doing and publicizing one’s own actions, and profiting from others’ experiences —  as the main site itself is already.

I haven’t yet started to experiment with any of these applications, and so can’t review or vouch for any of them.  I can say, though, that many people in my network have started to download them. Facebook keeps me abreast of what my friends have been up to (if they give the site permission to broadcast their activities), and over the past couple days I’ve noticed that lots of them have been adding 3rd party applications. Intrigued, I visited  Facebook’s applications page just now and saw that there were over 100 applications available already (I believe that all of them are free). These include tools to let members:

For people and companies interested in Facebook’s potential within the enterprise, the opening of the platform is a welcome development, and probably a fundamentally important one. Developers now have the ability to customize Facebook for the needs of the enterprise, and to do so in a low-cost, low-risk, and iterative manner. 

I can’t wait to see what they come up with. As I wrote before, Facebook appears to tap into a set of our deep-seated desires: to reach out to people, to be accepted by them, keep them up to date on our doings, and to stay up to date on theirs. What tools will be built to leverage and extend these desires? And what kinds of impact will they have on companies and their performance? We’ll have to stay tuned.

If you’re using or developing enterprise-oriented Facebook tools, please leave a comment and tell us about them. And give me some on-the-job training by inviting me to use them with you; here’s my profile.

  • http://www.leveragingideas.com Squasher98

    I don’t see Facebook proper as having any role in the Enterprise. I think that something will come out using the best attributes of the Facebook platform, but with an enterprise slant.

    The issue is that for slightly older generations they will not implement Facebook simply based on stereotypes and the idea that condoning its use will result in wasted productivity.

    On the other hand, younger generations entering the workforce (those more likely to use it anyhow) see a separation between work applications and ‘fun’ applications. I don’t see my sister and her college age friends wanting to mix work with pleasure…

    Facebook will soon arrive in the enterprise…but it will be branded and approached as something nu.

    http://www.leveragingideas.com/

  • John Day

    Facebook’s ability to foresee the key innovations in social networking is going to make it a true behemoth in the space. Myspace, though far larger in terms of page hits, has far less user loyalty and, in my opinion, will die eventually.

    I think the perfect example of Facebook’s foresight is the homepage they developed, consolidating all the updates one’s friends make…people hated it at first, but it’s quickly become the bedrock of the site and created a convenient way to grab all the information you previously might have trolled through friend’s pages for…convenience is key, and Myspace remains clunky in this respect.

  • http://zelune.net Proxy Script

    The new API is great for webmasters like myself who are developing new API’s that will spread like wildfire among students! It really is a good step forward for facebook.

    -Collin Raithe
    http://zelune.net

  • http://www.babyhold.com baby names technology

    “Find people based on what they like to drink (!?!?!) ” – your blogs are full of humor. Since facebook is so popular, it makes sense that they want to expand their features.

  • http://www.internet-empire.com Edmund Ng

    I think Facebook is probably one of the fastest growing social bookmarking sites since My Space. With all the spamming happening in MySpace, I won’t be surprise if hordes of them have already migrated to Face Book.

  • http://fiscaltimes.com Aniq Rahman

    Developing a Facebook Question/Answer application right now — should be out this weekend. Think — Yahoo answers + Yelp. ;)

  • http://www.oursheet.com Mario Ruiz

    This is a wonderful debate: Does Facebook has a place on the company? YES. This could be used as a Portal, like an Intranet for the employees, not only to gosip, but also to make serious announces and invite groups to meetings.

    If you force me a little, I can see some applications like BaseCamp running inside on Facebook.

    Mario Ruiz

  • http://www.cutiegadget.com Cutie

    I think too many social networking like My space and facebook in is only one of them.. The plus point is they bulid the seperate network.

  • http://port25.technet.com Bryan Kirschner

    You mentioned in your post that “developers now have the ability to customize Facebook.” Another interesting dynamic is that 3rd parties are able to extend what developers can do beyond what Facebook itself offers – Microsoft now offers two different tools.

    The first may be particularly relevant to professional/ Enterprise developers: the Facebook Toolkit wraps the Facebook API into a .NET managed component; developers now will be able to drag ‘and drop a Facebook component onto the component tray in Visual C# Express , Visual Basic Express and Visual Web Developer IDEs (http://www.codeplex.com/FacebookToolkit).

    The second may extend who can take advantage of the Facebook APIs – Popfly is a project to enable new / non- programmers to participate in ‘Web 2.0Â’ as creators, not just consumers – users who have little to no development experience can create simple quick mash-ups with the Facebook block in Popfly (http://www.popfly.ms/Overview/Default.asp).

    I will pass any interesting examples of folks using these that I find along!

  • http://favoritemusiconline.com Rachel Ramon

    I tried to used facebook for finding new friends but didn’t success. maybe because it’s too USA oriented?

  • http://harian--metro.blogspot.com Harian Metro

    Hi..just stopping by to say a Happy New Year…interesting post there, and i’ve bookmarked this blog too…keep up the good job ;)

  • http://www.myspacespells.com myspace comments

    This is very good step from facebook, as everybody now can develop facebook applications, so facebook will become more and more popular.
    This is the way, how you can plan something from beginning. They used myspace experiance, and implemented into their technology.
    Lets see what myspace will offer?

  • http://www.muslim-names.co.uk baby names

    My main issue with facebook is that they retain your information even after you deactivate your account. Its never actually deleted from their servers.

  • http://www.customizedfacebook.com customize facebook

    i also have the problem with them retaining and sharing personal info. and with people spending more thant 30% of their worktime on FB, no wonder its getting blocked – but thats what proxy sites are for i guess.

  • http://www.launchfacebook.com facebookproxy

    Facebook really seems to be getting really popular these days, even the Singapore govt is starting to use it as a platform for getting feedback from citizens.

  • subwooferamplifier

    Facebook has become really popular. Now a time will come, when people will be known by their facebook profiles.

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