So Facebook will finally allow users to group friends and control information flow based on friend type. For guys like Robert Scoble, who have 5,000 friends (the limit), this may be a way to finally sort through the real friends from the fans. It’s a much needed feature that people have been requesting for a long time.
It also shows the steady maturity of Facebook from a college network to a full on world network, where friendships, business contacts, family and other types of relationships need to be more fully described. And this is also as much about privacy as it is about organization - users will be able to limit the information that certain friend groups receive.
A few existing applications are going to be affected, like Slide’s Top Friends application, the most popular third party app on Facebook. Lots of other applications will likely need to be tweaked to work properly when this launches (so many of them access the friends list). And this will shut down at least one “startup” we’ve been tracking that was creating this exact feature as an application. At least they can quit now and stop putting good time and money after bad.
Building Facebook applications is a big dice roll. If it’s too popular or too obvious of an idea (even if it hasn’t been done yet), Facebook is just as likely to compete with you as pay a few bucks and just buy you (they are probably more likely to compete with you than buy you, actually).
Some developers will probably wonder if getting a cash grant from Facebook’s just-announced fbFund will lessen the likelihood of direct competition from the company. Only time will tell.
Update: Wired is writing about a slew of Facebook ad networks and the almost inevitable fact that Facebook will be competing with them directly, too. We’ve covered most of these: SocialMedia, VideoEgg, Lookery, fbExchange, and RockYou. Also mentioned are Cubics and Appfuel. Lots of brave souls racing to build a business before Facebook comes in and stomps all over the scene.
Ahh…the inevitable success of any app will inevitably be stomped out. This seams to undermine developer creativity. As a staunch supporter of this open development, I think that Facebook may be ruining their relationships if they steal others innovations. That said, I know everyone in the developer community expected something like this to happen.
Blaaaakh.. another facebook article.
“Building Facebook applications is a big dice roll. If it’s too popular or too obvious of an idea (even if it hasn’t been done yet), Facebook is just as likely to compete with you as pay a few bucks and just buy you (they are probably more likely to compete with you than buy you, actually).”
My thoughts exactly. I wrote an article called “The War and Art of Wall” a few months ago that touched upon this issue. Facebook developers be wary….
—
http://www.fantasysportsmatrix.com
…a social network for sports fans!
Here’s the article I wrote:
http://facereviews.com/2007/07.....-the-wall/
Hello to all my beloved fans of my thralling social network and massive enterprise which will soon compete against the like of companies like Google one enchanted day.
Thank you for believing in our Facebook Open API, which was really just a way for us to get you idiots to develop stuff by the mass and for us to wait and see which ones stick and then just copy it and pre-install it on every one of our 40+ million user accounts and then reap the benefits of monetization $ -)
I would like to give a special thanks to the following people and APPs for helping us steal your ideas:
Slide: Top Friends
Super Wall
We will soon announce an instant messaging platform which will most likely rip off some of the most popular ones out there on Facebook and then take credit as being the creative genius behind it.
Although I am socially inept and introverted and walk like I have hemorrhoids and can’t speak English clearly, I have become very wealthy from your support for my Company.
Thank you and Keep Dreaming…Becuase my fund will then steal it and leave you holding the empty sac…
If you already have a business outside of facebook it won’t matter if they copy you . They have given you access to their 40 Million users for free . You should know what your plan is before you start spending time and money .
You dont have to have a facebook app for them to copy you , they can copy any of the thousands of ideas that that are out there on the internet ..
Dear Startup-Crappy News,
You’re one of the fools that have fallen into our trap.
Thank you for making us richer..PS your website sucks
Mike, what’s with you and Facebook? I mean where’s the MEAT of Techcrunch? People here are gettin sick of readin ur Facebook stuff! Dont ya get it??? (Obviously not..!) DUH!
Take that Back Stuart or Else I will have your Facebook Account revoked and you will never be able to poke or stalk gorgeous girls again!
Not sure why but I love Fake Mark Zuckerberg. Probably because to me reading about every single change or rumor of change on Facebook is as fun as inspecting stool samples on an assembly line. There are plenty of networks around the same size, but you’d be hard pressed to tell by the balance of coverage. Maybe they’re just so extra-2.0 or something.
FB is entitled to the TC cover, has anyone checked out alexa???
—–> t - 6 weeks and they’ll have myspace on toast
Thanks Belinda…That’s exactly the PR that we need. Belinda just contact my people and lemme c if we can find you a concierge job for one of our bathrooms in downtown palo alto.
With Love from Facebook,
Mark Zuckerberg your commander and Chief
The application development model has destroyed facebook in my eye. Their classes section for college students has been completely destroyed, in the thought that absolutely none of my friends use it because they have to go out, look for the classes app, install it, then fill in the information; where as, previously it was merely part of our profile to fill out.
Someone needs to come out with a real social network again.
Hey, Mike, don’t feel bad; Mark Zuckerberg is my God (too)!
You dont have to have a facebook app for them to copy you , they can copy any of the thousands of ideas that that are out there on the internet ..
I agree, the facebook and google blogs are not why I visit techcrunch. I was hoping you would blog for each of the techcrunch 40 companies - I enjoy seeing all the new ideas and companies — even if some of them are weird.
Sorry but have to join the IM sick of Facecrap articles. Enough mike. There are plenty of startups and news to be covered without going for the easy toast and picking Facebook.
I actually thought you were a real journalist but obviously your too busy to actually do any real coverages now your rolling in fame and money.
So who came up with “innovation”?
I bet 100s or 1000s did at the same time over the last 10 years.
Here’s a different sort of friends app that you might find interesting:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/a.....5469363031
Find out what your friends have told everyone you are good at and track your public expertise rankings.
In turn, increase your karma by telling everyone about your friends.
Discover experts on Facebook.
As a developer working on a facebook app this doesn’t worry me that much… While it is no longer easy to spread an app as it was in the first days of the open platform because of the saturation of the directory, there are still plenty of opportunities of great apps to gain adoption.
As for other social networks like Linked In that rely upon the fact that Facebook did not provide different levels of privacy to users wanting to display a certian identity to a group like their work peers, this is a big blow.
http://apps.facebook.com/i-wanna/
COOOOOOOOOL !!!! Another facebook article.
I lovet it. Serious!
this is insane! anyone that builds his whole business around another one needs to take business 101 in his local college.
Its like selling pink unisex stripe knee-high tube socks in front of Nordstroms because they dont have it.
Sure you will make good business at first but you are completely under Nordstroms mercy, they can shut you dont for no reason OR they can start selling those socks for cheaper.
Yes! Finally Top Friends and the other wall apps will be off the rankings and give some of the other apps a chance for the top spots!
http://apps.facebook.com/battlestations/
There shouldn’t be a maximum amount of friends for Facebook. I’m sure they will expand this at some point.
Bye bye LinkedIn! You always did suck!!
It’s hard to imagine a no contract “partnership” with a company that has a proven track record of IP theft.
For all of the Facebook haters, we will aquire you and force you into indentured servitude. For all those supporters, thank you keep on building and buying into our PR media frenzy hype- we spend a lot of money doing it.
Thanks,
Your Commander and Chief
What is wrong with all of you people who want Mike to stop blogging about Facebook?
Ignoring the competition is not going to make it go away…
a few thoughts…
1. What is funny is that when we first started our fb app I thought our biggest competition would be from another app startup or another business network, but now I feel it is Facebook.
2. While I do feel like FB might be a threat to other apps, how is this new grouping really compete with Top Friends? I don’t see it, but I never use it so…
3. So submitting your ideas to fbFund might lessen your direct competition from facebook? If you are concerned about a company stealing your ideas why would you send those ideas to them with a detailed analysis on why they would work? Send them in so they can get a jumpstart on your app! At least if you do it on your own you have the chance of growing it before they do their own launch. Not that i am saying they will steal your app, I am just stating that if you don’t trust them why would tell them anything.
The answer is simple - just don’t waste time developing “apps” that are really core platform features. Focus on your app, leave platform development to facebook.
Ask Nintendo with the Gamecube (lack of) and Apple with the iPod accessories why 3rd party support is important!
Is Fake Mark Zuckerberg jealous or what? Real Zuckerberg actually is a genius for having the public code all these great apps for him. My guess is the Fake MZ is probably more introverted and awkward looking the Real MZ.
http://actionstalk.com
FB can cannibalize apps. But at the end of the day if they really go too far down that road, developers will drop them, or they will get Microsoft style lawsuits by developers being squeezed out of the Attention OS. Maybe even Capital Hill/ European commission investigations. Thread carefully is what I’d say.
Excuses.. I was in the wrong comment box
LOL. I was talking 3rd party ad networks on FB.
Fake Mark Zuckerberg makes me laugh, but his hackneyed copy of Facebook (College.com) is not going to find traction. Real Mark Zuckerberg is a terrible public speaker, but he can practice his skills all the way to the bank…
Great. This is one feature I’ve been harping for myself.
Did that lame ass fake Steve Ballmer actually have the sense to read the tea leaves and get a new gig? I hope at the next TechCrunch conference there is a session where all the attendees can use a taser on these dopes. I’d pay $2500 for that a year in advance!
I agree with Ben, anyone can work with someone to improve public speaking, but building something 30 million use regularly — there’s no course you can take for that. Indeed, young Zuckerberg has much to smile and laugh about.
Personally I do not see how this will effect Linkedin. No matter how you separate your friends as groups, you can only limit or allow a certain extend of your profile to them and your profile in Facebook is for social not professional. So even if you are separating your friends, it is just a privacy tool and not a move toward professional networking. Facebook will cease to be facebook is it moves away from social.
Facebook developers should start looking into patenting their ideas. At least file a provisional patent. That will give you one year to check the popularity of your application. Imagine what would have happened if Jeff Bezos did not get the one click checkout patent. On the flip side of coin, imagine where the Web would have been if Mark Andreessen would have gotten the patent for cookie
@Craig Lu- Facebook is for both professional and social and for many one’s professional environment is their social environment. It’s perfect for the web celebs.
MS to “Invest” in FaceBook … Buying 5% … hehehe
My motto has always been:
“If ya can’t beat ‘em, sabotage ‘em”
We have pulled this one a hundred times before, everyone knows it, but they just can’t resist all of that beautiful CASH!
Every last MS executive has a FaceBook Profile, we like FaceBook, we are impressed by FaceBook, but we don’t own FaceBook!
Why does FaceBook threaten us you ask?
The answer is very simple: we have spent billions over the years convincing people that MS technologies are the best; when a FaceBook, YouTube, Gaggle, …. comes along and shows us up, people’s preception of us changes. This is not acceptable.
SOLUTION:
FaceBook must be “Microsoft’d”!
1. The first step being a friendly investment,
2. … a seat on the board (make stupid votes/suggestions)
3. Closer “integration” with our OS, less with others.
4. Taking credit for fixing bugs created by the integration
5. FaceBook eventually works as well as the rest of our software
Problem solved!
ttp://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
@startupnews (6) I agree with you 100% that if you have a bona fide business and build a Facebook application to accentuate it, then you should be fine.
“Building Facebook applications is a big dice roll. If it’s too popular or too obvious of an idea (even if it hasn’t been done yet), Facebook is just as likely to compete with you as pay a few bucks and just buy you (they are probably more likely to compete with you than buy you, actually).”
I have yet to see any truly innovative applications for the Facebook platform and don’t blame the company for competing with them. Isn’t the old adage that it isn’t about ideas, but about execution? The way I see it, the popular third party applications are providing feedback to Facebook on how they need to improve the platform. While I understand how this can be frustrating, Facebook is giving these developers access to 40MM+ members in categorized groups (networks).
To be truly innovative you need to think outside of the box, and many of these applications are nothing more than web widgets adapted to Facebook.
To add, I made a short post about competitive versus comparative advantage in the TechCrunch Forums, which I feel adds value to this conversation (hyper-linked in my name above).
“If you are looking to build your company on the internet following a competitive advantage mindset than you are going to fail 99.4% of the time. The internet is an open environment where traditional rules of intellectual property do not exist and it is exceptionally difficult to build a company that cannot be duplicated. However, if you take a comparative advantage approach to your company — where you focus on a niche where you can create the most value, you will be successful. It is difficult to find that niche that hasn’t been duplicated 10x over, but they exist.”
boy, I’m getting a little tired of the fake so-and-so guys… It was funny for a while, when it was new & creative. I dunno…maybe I’m just too sleepy right now & I’m being a buzzkill.
Not sure why but FB just isn’t that interesting to me. I can’t even get into it. Perhaps I just like real friends rather than virtual ones.
Well, the old saying is if you want to innovate and create real change, a good percentage of your users will complain about the changes. Facebook is growing both in users and number of applications. Having worked with one of the first business applications for sales professionals (ACT! http://www.act.com), they have asked for add-on applications since about 1990. This is still a healthy business for those who continually innovate their addon products. For many of those applications, they had a shelf life of about 2 years before they were incorporated in the new release of the product. In the world of in-line releases, this can happen at any time since there is no duplicating of CD’s, designing the new manual, and shipping it in a box.
However, I do have a few associates who became millionaires when their companies where purchased. The most protected products seemed to be those which were in specialized or vertical niches such as real estate.
As far as grouping friends, this is a needed feature for users such as myself who is a blogger and consultant. There is a need to keep segments of family and friends, close business associates/advisors/investors, and my readers or friends of friends.
Facebook is an infant or adolescent including its management…they will learn, make mistakes and continue to evolve. So far they have accomplished which very few have done which is to create the kind of “buzz” such as this comment to grow their business.
Andy Kaplan
http://www.facebookenthusiast.com