There’s no arguing that Facebook’s new Facebook Platform is inspired thinking. The noise about it speaks for itself. Facebook users will soon have access to extra functionality.
Given my own time difference (+8GMT) I’m late to the story, reading it first on TechCrunch and then on Techmeme. After reading the coverage I immediately logged into Facebook to see how I could use Facebook Platform. There’s nothing. Not one thing on the official Facebook communication pages about Facebook Platform. Facebook users are not all tech savvy types; they won’t read about the news on tech and web 2.0 related destinations including TechCrunch.
At the time of writing this post;
Press Releases: last press release is dated April 6
Facebook Blog: last post May 22 talking about Facebook’s Infrastructure
Recent Headlines: top story is a May 2 post on using the Facebook API.
New Features: Facebook Mobile now works in Canada (May 23).
Shyness from Facebook after the privacy issues last year? If it’s an oversight it certainly is a large one. Controlling the message is not only important from a PR perspective, communication = trust in Web 2.0, silence, at least in direct communications with users, can often be viewed with suspicion. Surely Facebook would want to share this with their users?
Facebook knows either way there will be the initial community shock expressed in the forms of thousands of groups.
But at the end of the day, early disclosure won’t do much if the new stuff they introduce sucks–or vice-versa(ie. news feeds ended up being a winner after the initial crying). And like you said, most of their community won’t really understand in words what they’re doing here until they experience it.
Great point Duncan.
I agree that a company can easily control the PR when they help to handle what is put out.
Perhaps they are just waiting until it goes live. I guess a possible conspiracy makes a better story.
I agree with Mike. Facebook is not known to pre-announce their new features (aside from the new design), instead surprising users with a special box above their news feeds when it does launch.
Duncan, you need to be here.
http://f8.facebook.com/
That is all.
I agree with 4. More often than not Facebook just lets its users stumble upon sweeping changes and hopes that the rebellion is a short, bloodless one.
i find it hard to believe that they didn’t give an indication of launch date.
Well seems like the new Platform is now up on the FB Developer page http://develope...8.facebook.com/ which is also accessible from the “developer” link from the main FB site.
Also, they will be uploading the Keynote Video soon on there as well, which was what I wanted to watch anyway.
One would think Facebook would have learned a lesson from last years debacle, and hired a PR firm that was worth a damn to consult them on such issues.
I would have agreed with you if the title was “What About the Geeks?” or “What About the Mashup Developers?”, but the _users_ of Facebook don’t care about the Platform.
If Facebook moves correctly (learning from the News Feed revolt), users will never hear the word “Platform”, they’ll just see all this new cool stuff they can do on the site.
http://usc.f8.f...ebook.com/apps/
The new platform site launches tomorrow – I have confirmed this with an insider.
The sentiment is correct. Facebook users are not the type of people who will typically take advantage of something like the Platform.
They are much more likely to appreciate the end product than the effort it would take to design something from scratch. The subset of Facebook’s users who actually do care are here and in order places where this meme has already spread.
I like to think that Facebook PR has learned from the little news feed upset of a while back, and what they have learned is that no matter how irritated users become, eventually they will get used to any change that is thrown at them.
Crap, they just took the new developer site down, I wish I took a screenshot! I guess it wasn’t meant to be up.
I did the exact same thing, and kept thinking, “Surely, there is some info on their site somewhere about this” and I could not find any.
It’s on the Facebook Developers Page.
But, most of the Facebook users probably won’t go there, and probably won’t understand some of what’s there. There should be a for-users help section on it… They’re probably working on one, though. Maybe they’re waiting for more people to start using the Facebook Platform?
The MSFT VS Express site has been updated. Link from: http://www.visi...-visual-studio/
Looks like it’s up here: http://develope...ation.php?v=1.0
Here is the developer info…
http://develope...s.facebook.com/
And the list of apps…
http://www.facebook.com/apps/
And the movie-based app we just built…
http://apps.fac.../fantasymoguls/
yes agreed with 19 on http://develope...ation.php?v=1.0
@20
Shut the Fk Up.
Why would they have to tell us. We can just read about it from you guys here at TechCrunch or in David Kirkpatrick’s piece for Fortune. I think their PR people have done quite the job around this…
Kirkpatrick’s story on the announcement and the overall mission of Facebook nailed it.
Personally, as a Generation Yer, the story hit pretty close to home. The whole story of Facebook really defines our generation and I’m telling you first hand; the college crowd isn’t going to leave…
Like many college alums I have started to dabble in other social networks for “professionals” like LinkedIN, but Facebook keeps pulling me back. Why?
Because it’s about cultivating relationships with people I already know and have shared 3:00 a.m. bleary-eyed discussions with. Like Kirkpatrick duly noted.
Slowly after some time the college crowd will start to go back less frequently but they will still check-in from time-to-time and the next generation of college and high school students will carry the torch.
I was graduating as an undergraduate when Facebook first came to my university and it instantly took off.
The funniest thing is that the class that graduated ahead of me has no idea what the Facebook phenomenon really is.
Just one year difference and they don’t understand how closely entwined Facbook became in everyday College life.
From organizing parties & fund raisers, sharing pictures, stories, declaring relationships and viewpoints, defining myself, letting me know my friend from abroad was having their birthday, letting people know where I was; it became a daily part of my life.
In truth these days, it’s like waking up in the morning and reading an online newspaper about what is going on across your “Friend’s World.” That’s what the feeds have enabled.
Yeah, it started out as a great hook-up tool for frat brothers but it has evolved into so much more. That’s why this announcement from Zuckerberg didn’t catch me off-guard at all.
Involving your friends in everything you do online; is what Facebook has already turned into. It’s even more actually. It’s the tool to include your friends in everything you do in your life. At least in my social circles…
Facebook is going to end up being Microsoft’s best move of the decade because I truly believe Facebook will far surpass Myspace in the next couple years and become a company that is mentioned in the same breath with the likes of Yahoo! and Google.
I truly enjoyed his piece. As long as Zuckerberg doesn’t let the site become overly commercial and sticks to the mission of “growing your relationships online with old and new friends” Facebook will be the company that we are talking about in the next decade.
“I Googled it” and “I Facebooked him” will be synonymous phrases in all social circles..
I get it so that must mean that average facebookers in Arizona will not only get it,but like it too
I also agree with Kyle. Hey buddie, add me as a myBlogLog friend (jk or Facebook me!
I’ve been trying to use Facebook Apps all day…it’s buggy. I installed 5 apps, later to find that they have been uninstalled. Now they cannot be installed. Plus, the app system is running super slow. They need to get this up to speed now.
I noticed too Andy, seems like the Apps platform is not very stable right now.
Yes, I too noticed a lot of bugs. f8.facebook.com is running normally (not slow like the public version) and information changes is consistent between the two.
Hurrry! One more facebook story before the day ends!
I just find this sort of amusing…goes to show how most FB users are not tech savvy and don’t even understand what is going on this very moment. The comments on one of the Applications I was looking at, had everyone giving credit to Facebook. People don’t get that a platform has just been opened and 3rd Party developers are creating these Apps.
Just like someone above has just mentioned, most of the Users don’t care, as long as it works! I’m really curious to see how this will play out in the long run though. Things like security, bugs (seems like FB is crashing these days, which I don’t even remember it ever happening), Browser load etc…..