Mark Zuckerberg Announces the Facebook Platform
October 11, 2007
On May 24th of this year, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg held the f8 Keynote in San Francisco. It was during this press conference that Zuckerberg first announced the availability of the Facebook Platform, enabling third party developers to create their own Facebook applications.
The conference began with Zuckerberg explaining the integral steps Facebook took in order to make the developer platform a success. The first step for the social networking site’s success included expanding its user base. Previously, Facebook was only available to college students, opening its doors to high school students shortly thereafter. Upon allowing open registration, Facebook soon found itself growing at a rate of 3% per week, adding over 100,000 users per day.
Zuckerberg goes on to explain the implementation of Facebook’s news feed. The feed, which provides an overview of recent friend activity upon logging into Facebook, had a bit of a rocky start. Users were upset that they did not have control over who could see what information. Facebook responded immediately, providing users with the level of control they wanted almost overnight. As a result, Zuckerberg states that Facebook’s users love the news feed feature.
The Facebook Platform offers three key pieces: deep integration built into the site, mass distribution through the social graph, and a new business opportunity.
Through the Facebook API, a Facebook application can take full advantage of the site’s profile widgets to customize a user’s profile. A developer can hook into various components of the profile in order to include links in the application switcher, etc. Furthermore, developers can publish news feeds relating to the application and enable users to send application invitations and messages with application-specific embedded content to their friends. Through the use of the Facebook Markup Language (FBML) first described during the f8 Keynote, independent developers can provide users with a dynamic experience that completely integrates into the Facebook layout.
Before wrapping up the keynote, Zuckerberg handed the floor over to several corporate guests who have been working with the Facebook Platform to create their own applications. Microsoft VP Dan’l Lewin was first to explain how Popfly will integrate into Facebook. Amazon VP Russ Grandinetti discussed how Amazon will take advantage of the Facebook Platform with a product review application, and Max Levchin wrapped up the keynote with an explanation of Slide’s plans for integration into Facebook.
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