Facebook, Your Move
Erick Schonfeld
63 comments »
Not so fast, Mike. The anti-Facebook coalition piling onto Google’s OpenSocial platform does not constitute checkmate for Google just quite yet. These are developer announcements. No actual consumers have changed their social networking habits because of OpenSocial. Facebook still has all the momentum with consumers (and, thus, with the developers who want to reach them). It can afford to wait and see how this whole OpenSocial thing plays out.
It just cannot wait too long before deciding its next move. And the very best move may very well be, as you suggest, Mike, to join the coalition itself. (Not that Google has asked it to). Otherwise, it risks becoming the Apple of the social networking world (the old Apple of the 1980s, which always offered a nicer, more controlled experience than Windows, but ceded application momentum). Because if apps are easier to develop for OpenSocial, and those apps can be spread across all the OpenSocial partner sites (including MySpace) in a write once, run anywhere fashion, developers will end up writing for both OpenSocial and Facebook. And if their OpenSocial apps start to gain more traction because they have more functionality, they may just start to put those Facebook projects on the back burner. (With OpenSocial, for instance, full applications can run on members’ profile pages, whereas on Facebook there are substantial restrictions on what developers can do on those profile pages).
Facebook may have started the ball rolling, but OpenSocial could very well win over developers rapidly. As Marc Andreesen, whose DIY social network startup Ning is an anti-Facebook coalition member, puts it:
Open Social — by making this exact same kind of opportunity available to any other social network or container and every app developer and site on the web, in an open and compatible way — will prevent Facebook from having any kind of long-term proprietary developer lock-in. Developers will easily write to both Facebook and Open Social, and have every reason to do so — in fact, 100+ million reasons to do so.
If you’re Facebook, you’d probably prefer to have that proprietary lock-in, and so this announcement may not make you that happy. However, all is not bad for Facebook, because a big part of what’s happening today is market expansion, and Open Social will definitely help fuel market expansion, which is in everyone’s interest, including Facebook’s.
Finally, note that Facebook can easily support Open Social any time they want. They probably won’t do so right away, but in the long run, it will probably be a no-brainer for them, because then they will pick up whatever Open Social app developers who aren’t also Facebook developers.
Make that much more than 100 million reasons. MySpace alone had 107 million unique visitors globally in September (compared to 73.5 million for Facebook), according to comScore data (see table). Six Apart had 39 million, Hi5 had 35 million,and Bebo had 20 million. There is some duplication there, but you get the idea.
Joining OpenSocial could actually be a brilliant move for Facebook, especially if it can become the advertising network of choice for social apps. If Facebook can make it easy for Facebook developers to port their apps elsewhere and power those apps with Facebook ads, why wouldn’t it do so? Checkmate, indeed.
very true!
market expanding or shrinking…now i do not signup every other social network…just stick to one…install all other apps at one place
btw, who knocked first on your doors for this PR : MS or FB ?
Differing views on the same topic on the same blog? Praise Jesus.
This is a bit of a mind bender. Should Facebook launch a Facebook app for OpenSocial so that you can embed Facebook in MySpace? Exciting times…
Thank you Eric for actually “getting” what OpenSocial is about instead of beating the war drums like every other web journalist seems to be doing at this point.
It’s all set up..Drama…we are in audience. Just enjoy the show, go home, watch TV, Sleep, Wake up, do your thing (tomorrow starts), Come on TC, just ignore some articles and don’t waste time commenting on them.
but..
Welcome to open journalism…
I have a request to TC - on a daily basis, wait till the end of the day and consolidate all FB/socialjunk into one article.
There is lot of stuff happening other than just the social and facebook.
#8 - You are the man!
But they need readers….
PLEASE STOP writing about Facebook!!!
There are over 4 million websites on the internet!!!
I can’t believe how the media made Facebook rich, it’s amazing!!!
Ning seems to be getting the most PR out of this move; they’re quoted or referred to in almost every article I’m seeing. I love reading Mark’s blog, but why Ning?
I am wondering when netvibes is planning to do this..so far they are the most open and innovative ..specifically in apps area..
#11, those $100 M should be spent somewhere
Resistance is futile?
“…if their OpenSocial apps start to gain more traction because they have more functionality, they may just start to put those Facebook projects on the back burner.”
So OpenSocial = easier so more features possible. But who will use these feature rich apps when Myspace users are moving to Facebook? (half of my friends have already left) Myspace needs to solve this issue asap.
Facebook ML = difficult less features. But potentially more users and ‘eyeballs’ in the long run. It’s all about the ads!! The continued exodus to Facebook will not stop anytime soon.
The dying or the aged on one side and the baby elephant on the other. The plot thickens.
“If Facebook can make it easy for Facebook developers to port their apps elsewhere and power those apps with Facebook ads, why wouldn’t it do so? Checkmate, indeed.”
The current facebook widgets are worthless. innovation in this area still need to mature, and why would any developer, other than the current facebook app developers, complete initial development on FB when they can reach more users using opensocial.
And why would any new developers learn FBML when they can use their current knowledge of HTML and Javascript on opensocial
checkmate my a**
In some ways I liked facebook better as a closed platform. It was simpler, cleaner, and better looking. Some apps are practical, but the majority of them are page cluttering. Hopefully opensocial will provide the best developers with a common arena to compete to put out useful apps.
@14…
Web users are notoriously fickle, whos to say that 2 years from now they will still be on facebook?
So Marc A. also invested (supposedly - I can’t believe he actually due diligenced Seth Goldstein) in SocialMedia. I think Open Social makes guys like them and others like Gigya dead in the water. Thoughts?
smoke and mirrors…. everyone is afraid of the facebook juggernaut. I have to tell you I’m no facebook fan… but
i have received a bunch of invites from friends who are now on facebook.
i get 6 spam invite request from myspace per day
i get no spam on facebook
this is all a pr game ad bluffing by google and all the other social networks who are getting left behind by facebook. smoke and mirrors. facebook has got the mojo, the valuable audience and the developers.
open doesn’t always work. MS is still the dominant OS, Apple Ipod is dominant in digital music…. and it looks like facebook is going to be dominant in social networking,
so I ain’t buying the hype…. google and it’s minions have sure got all their pr people trying to spin this as some big win, when it’s a sign of desperation.
look at the growth rate of facebook… a pic is worth a thousand words
@19
Look at the revenue for Facebook compared to the valuation and compare with Google’s… a pic is worth a thousand words
are these unique visitor just limited to US? or is it whole world?
“If Facebook can make it easy for Facebook developers to port their apps elsewhere and power those apps with Facebook ads, why wouldn’t it do so? Checkmate, indeed.”
Does he mean possibly putting Facebook ads on the apps onto other sites? Doesn’t that mean breaking terms and conditions of those other sites, especially MySpace?
google is a one trick pony and it’s all ad revenue. they got locked out of facebook and they’re starting to realize that facebook is much bigger than a social network platform… they got their sights on google’s bread and butter… adverts. and the facebook growth rate is phenomenal. (that’s the pic everyone is looking at right now)
MS has more revenue than anyone so it’s not revenue that counts here, but the future potential revenue. that’s why facebook is seen as such a threat by google.
btw, yelp is going to be heading for the deadpool…. their traffic has stalled, the reviews are worthless and no biz owners have any incentive to advertise.
I think google should just throw in the towel and beg for FB to acquire GOOG!
Look, just because GOOG does $15B in revenue, has a $220B market cap, $13B of cash on the balance sheet, no debt, and $5.6B of EBITDA, and the best and the brightest running the company, they’re no match for a company that does $150MM in revenue (mainly from one source). GOOG should beg FB to acquire them before it’s too late!!! LOL. Seriously guys, let’s get real here. GOOG will always be ten steps ahead of the JV squad at FB.
So you are basically saying that:
When I am in need of looking for something on the internet, that I will no longer go to google or another search engine, but instead I will log into Facebook, throw a sheep/send a jack & coke at my friend, and he will magically throw back the information I was looking for?
Oh man, lets think for once whether users actually WANT applications. And if they do, whether those apps actually need to be connected socially. It seems to me that we’re getting ahead of ourselves here.
Granted the “web as an operating system” metaphor has merit, but all this bandwagon jumping with glorified embeddable widgets is tiresome. Good move on Facebook for creating another thing for people to play with, but for the SuperPoke, Slide, Pirate Game Etc to be fueling all this speculation in terms of BILLIONS of dollars is pretty entertaining.
There is no “checkmate” nor is there even a “check.”
Imagine how different the today’s market would be if YouTube never did offer an “add this” HTML code?
-Mike
#11 @Amy
Ning lets you create your own niche social network, so Open Social will let you make various Open Social apps available to the members of your network. Pretty simple really…
facebook is for managing relationships… google is for search. problem for google is facebook is defining the net in way that is different than search.. it’s a game changer. that’s what has got the google plex so concerned. and they ain’t taking this lightly… but this api os developer crap will fail.
ms looked pretty invincible back in the day…. now it’s seen as an also ran.
Google has done a great job of putting together a powerful alliance to open up the social networking arena. Looking back at similar vendor initiatives, the only one I can remember being successful was Java. Many other initiatives floundered to the point we barely remember them anymore - so it will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
The notion of facebook becoming THE social ads super power is a little far fetched. Google’s existing ads network and infrastructure and position at the center of opensocial puts it in a HIGHLY competitive position against anything facebook can come up with.
but not in facebook. that’s the problemo for google. and facebook at it’s current growth rate with it’s valuable audience, may represent a good chunk of internet traffic fairly shortly.
May I ask, how does Google benefit from this? Does Google provide a default route for developers to earn revenue through its ad network? If developers are free to use any ad network, then BIG BIG kudos to Google for its truly open platform.
Ooh and how open is open social? We may trust a big organization like MySpace, Bebo or Google with personal data, but how will they police 3rd party developers preventing them from abusing individuals data?
Hold on one second here!
Facebook is utterly unstopable now that MS is onboard!
We are “ad-vising” them and throwing in some of our “special sauce” software!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
@31
Facebook is more popular than porn:
http://www.time.com/time/busin.....86,00.html
Okay, havent trawled through all replies, but why doesn’t facebook just open its platform to all other social networks….google has nothing then.
Having said this, if they all open up, then arent they all in theory dumped right back out on the internet again, which is the biggest open network there is, people first try to close, then open, then I am sure they will try to close it again.
Iqbal
If applications were the only reason people used Facebook, then OpenSocial would be a huge problem for Facebook. But in the real world, Facebook was already outperforming most of the OpenSocial gang before it launched the applications platform.
What really matters is what OpenSocial accomplishes after it spreads silly applications all over the place. People go to social network sites to see and manage their social graphs. If Google and its little gang run around screaming about how OpenSocial will increase interoperability, but don’t use OpenSocial to improve people’s social graphing experience, OpenSocial is just going to seem like so much hype.
So, the biggest variable in this equation: How much do LinkedIn, Hi5, and rest really want to share users? Will they encourage users to export data to other networks? Will they let users friend other sites’ users?
So, does anybody think all those competitors are really going to be that open?
Why do people who have a hate on for FB/social junk READ and COMMENT on articles about them ?
Techcrunch had 23 posts yesterday (Nov. 1), 2-3 with references to Facebook. IGNORE THEM.
If social applications don’t matter, then there is no game change or paradigm shift and there is not much to ponder. But in my view many web applications of the future are going to be inherently social and eventually things will open up. So social web standards matter a great deal.
But I guess the question is whether Google’s OpenSocial API matters right now. I think it does. Facebook doesn’t actually dominate social networking. Companies and individuals are going to want to develop social applications for all social networks and OpenSocial is going to provide an efficient means of doing so.
With OpenSocial, anyone could create a social networking site and expect many of the OpenSocial applications will work on it. There will surely be lots of new social networks in China in the coming several years. I bet Google will open up their social networking API to China ASAP.
Many business applications are inherently social in nature. Perhaps investment banks will create social networks on which to run market strategy games. Perhaps e-commerce sites will use the standard in their offerings so that they can more easily port their applications to different web properties.
This is a big deal. Lets see if it reaches critical mass.
@36
“Okay, havent trawled through all replies, but why doesn’t facebook just open its platform to all other social networks….google has nothing then.”
That would be an interesting move. Perhaps eventually Google would be forced to use the Facebook API in its applications and Facebook would own the defacto ID and social networking standards.
“Having said this, if they all open up, then arent they all in theory dumped right back out on the internet again, which is the biggest open network there is, people first try to close, then open, then I am sure they will try to close it again.”
But technologies mature and become commodities. Eventually people will stop quibbling so much over the basic ID and social networking standards, and there will be the equivalent of “platform wars” over open standards for natural language processing, language translation, etc. There is always a convergence of some standards and the creation of new, quite different standards that often utilize the more mature standards.
@Josh, that was not my question…. why is not Hi5, MySpace, or other much bigger players getting quoted, I saw 3 quotes from Ning, by far the smallest of the bunch of those in on the agreement. Great PR for Ning, good positioning, & more power to them; just would have thought the PR quotes would be from the larger players on how great this was blah blah…
Hey Erick you forgot whose signature is on your paycheck? Dude you got some balls. Wouldn’t be surprised if you’re back in the labor market next week.
But seriously, I think the crucial issue really is how ads are handled. Funnily enough, I haven’t been able to find out anything about that. I woulda thought that would be FAQ No. 1. Are G just being laissez-faire? Or are they planning something???
Google has completely missed the mark on this API. Facebook will jump in and take care of google in they old-time NY mafia took care of competition. Google’s Social Networking experiment will be “sleeping with the fishes” very soon. Bye bye Orkut, its been real nice knowing of your meager existence.
Read more here
http://techwaste20.blogspot.co.....g-api.html
I also predict Facebook will open up on this.
Thanks for the coverage on this. There’s been a lot of speculation and geek speak, but I’ve tried another angle: Explaining it to executives who will make the decision on this.
http://tinyurl.com/3dtqs6
Looking at the way the cards are stacked, I think Facebook is missing at least one ace:
Facebook does not have a working and proven ad-network.
After all, eyeballs is less than half of the equation.
Is it that easy to build a network to rival Google’s?
Not that I wish the Juggernaut any more power than it already has, but the leverage of their ad-network-muscle does seem a compelling advantage.
who cares about apps? facebook was popular before those crappy apps it now has. it doesnt need to join
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Facebook will carry on with business as usual partnered with a great company, Microsoft. MS has 80000 employee and huge market cap led by very good technology industry leaders.
Myspace sucks and is one of the worst platforms out there. Go look at their pages, nothing but a bunch of lonely women and petafiles.
Facebook is top-notch and MS as a big win here. Google can try to get the other social networks but they are all only second best.
Checkmate will be when and if Google controls the standards for mobile web development. For most of the world identity=cellphone. Google has a grand plan.