The big announcement this past week, and month really, was Facebook’s Platform.
There is tons of interesting commentary on the subject around the web (although nothing from Jason Calacanis, oddly enough).
One guy that lots of folks are talking about is Josh Kopelman. Here’s his much-repeated money quote:
Think about it. If you ran a venture-backed company and had to decide whether you wanted to focus your effort on: (a) a property that welcomed you in and let you keep 100% of the revenue you generate or (b) a company with a vague policy that doesn’t let you generate any revenue, which would you choose? I don’t think it’s even a decision. It’s an IQ test.
Josh Catone at Read/Write Web says:
I agree that Facebook made a brilliant move last week by opening up their network and embracing third-party developers. They may well have just leap-frogged MySpace by providing an environment that encourages developers to make Facebook more useful for its users. While nothing too compelling has been created so far (though iLike’s Facebook application has an impressive 482,000 users in its first weekend), all it takes is one killer app on the Facebook platform to really start drawing in the users and catch up to MySpace.
And TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington weighs in:
MySpace is a minefield – startups want access to their users but suffer from the very real possibility of being banned, either temporarily or permanently. Facebook is viewing things from exactly the opposite position: they are giving startups access to Facebook’s core feature set, and allowing them to show advertising and conduct transactions with users without even asking for a cut. This is exactly why I called Facebook the Anti-MySpace last week.
This is obviously a tremendous coup for Facebook. Both in terms of buzz and technological advantage.
Nevertheless, I think that Catone hits the nail on the head though when he says:
Developers, however, will go where the users are, and users are increasingly demanding that they be able to consume content and services wherever that happens to be. It follows, then, that as long as MySpace is popular with users, it will be popular with widget creators.
Widgets wizards aren’t going to abandon MySpace’s 100 million users, but this move by Facebook will probably end up forcing MySpace’s hand on the “openness” front.