Unit Structures: The Facebook Platform: Notes

The Facebook Platform: Notes
Posted 5/25/2007 10:59:00 AM |

In my previous post, I went into depth about the role Platform will play in Facebook's strategy going forward. This post is a less coherent collection of notes and criticisms I have about the Facebook Platform.

Fees: On the record, Facebook has stated they don't plan to charge fees for Platform access. However, the Terms of Service, section III, clearly provides FB the opportunity to start charging: "We reserve the right to charge a fee for using the Facebook Platform and/or any individual features thereof at any time in our sole discretion." Smart money says that FB will stay away from charging as long as possible, its not in their best interest to stunt growth.
Re-arrange your profile: With Platform, you can now drag-and-drop rearrange your profile. Cool stuff, but limited. You can't raise any elements above your Friends (left side) and your Mini-feed (right side). To move stuff around, go to your profile, click on the blue top bar of your profile elements, and drag around. You'll need javascript for this to work.
Time to re-think privacy? Its great that I can post these new applications to my profile, but what about the 99% of Facebook that can't see my profile? Now, this has never bothered me, but it might bother people who are developing applications for Facebook. Perhaps it is time to let branded apps selectively peek through the privacy layer, with approval of course.
Friends.get still broken. One of the main problems with the API is that it will only allow you to see the friends of the current user. What this means is that the user of an application can only see their friend network, but not the networks of their friends. This makes no sense because I can easily see my friends' networks in Facebook proper. By not allowing the API to get a list of a friend's friends, my ability to get interesting information by stumbling around is critically limited. Right now, Facebook apps have to be just about you. I already know me - let me find things out about my friends via their friend networks.
Feed.publish: In my opinion, this is the biggest deal in the API. A secret of Facebook is that people actually don't spend all that much time on each others' profiles. I don't check my friends' profiles each day, and I certainly don't check my less-than-friends profiles every day. First off, the news feed handles that for me, and second, we just dont have the time or inclination to surf our friends endlessly all the time. This is a key drawback to profile apps - people actually arent going to see them that often. However, with the feed.publish call, people can now have access to a news feed, meaning an app can broadcast what you've done to your newsfeed. This is a huge addition, and is very important. Also important to note is that the amount of times an app can publish to the feed is limited (about 20x/person) so applications must be careful when using feed messages.
Joe or Jane Developer to the Background? The Facebook API has largely been used by hobbyists and independent developers. While a few corporations peeked in, the majority of the development was done by people who were experimenting with the API. The applications created to date have a distinctly second-class feel, and the launch was really all about companies, not the individuals who have been providing the necessary testing, experimentation and feedback that Facebook required to get this product out the door. If companies become the first-class citzens of the Platform, expect students and hobbyists to go elsewhere; that would be a bad, bad situation for FB. FB should re-invest in its developer community, reward and encourage development going forward.
Higer Ed, its time to colonize: Of course, the last people who will develop Facebook platform applications will be Higher Ed, which moves as fast as a glacier on things like this. This is a shame, because Higher Ed has every incentive to participate. Why? This is the prime digital space for your constituents. Higher Ed should look at developing useful, need-answering places in Facebook. Give me a page with the academic calendar, links to Blackboard and student services, give me messages from time to time. Higher Ed can do all of this without worrying about FERPA or anything else. I'd also like to see alumni associations look into this - its extremely relevant and useful for the alumni context.

I think my thoughts on how higher ed could use the platform warrant another post. I might even mock up a few ideas. Your ideas and feedback welcome in the thread.

Permalink | | to this post
View blog reactions | Post to

4 Comments: (Post a Comment)

At May 25, 2007 1:28 PM, RTP 2.0 said...: All great points, but could this be the action that actually makes Facebook more similar to MySpace than different? More cluttered, more personalized, more chaotic?

Also a great post:
http://vcratings.thedealblogs.com/2007/05/the_danger_of_facebooks_new_st.php
At May 25, 2007 4:37 PM, Andy Shaindlin said...: Alumni associations may well be hesitant to pursue this with focus, as they don't like to steer people away from their own web sites, online directories, etc. However there are few reasons for them to avoid the "new" aspect of Facebook, and several reasons to embrace it.

I'll be blogging about this on http://www.alumnifutures.com in a few days and linking back to your excellent overviews of this.
At May 25, 2007 4:40 PM, Brian said...: I agree the opportunities are there for higher ed, although I wonder how accepted that would be by both sides. There is the institutional desire to control the messages and teh student desire to "keep the university out" of sites like facebook, Not sure how those two will blend, but we plan to look into how we can leverage this for things like the student events calendar.
At June 26, 2007 3:28 AM, coturnix said...: I am looking forward to your future posts about the use of Facebook in higher Ed (including teaching?). I have blogged a couple of times recently on the Facebook-science connection and I'd like to hear your thought on that.