
Facebook: Opening Up, But on Its Own Terms - terpua
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/09/06/facebook-opening-up-but-on-its-own-terms/
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ereldon
This article is well-written, and the particular issue of status updates is
especially pertinent considering the growth of related sites, such as Twitter.

However, the larger issue of Facebook changing the rules on people is a
reality that any developer using Platform has been living with daily for
months. Facebook is still searching for the balance between keeping a lock on
its users' data and behavior, and opening up.

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karzeem
Good article indeed, especially coming from the sometimes-hysterical folks at
TechCrunch.

The phrase "walled garden" comes to mind. Facebook is undoubtedly the best
social networking site on the web, and I don't see why it won't continue to
get better in that regard.

Their move to become a web platform, or a web OS, or whatever other buzzword
is currently in favor, is a little rockier. I think they're taking the idea of
an OS far too literally. A web OS won't--and shouldn't--look anything like a
desktop OS. Being a web platform is about facilitating interoperability--
precisely the opposite of measuring success by the number of apps that people
have written for your proprietary platform.

(Is it too obvious that my startup is working in this area?)

