We’re here at SXSW, where Facebook’s Senior Platform Manager Dave Morin is speaking about The Search for a More Social Web.
He says that computers have largely been antisocial – it was only with the advent of the computer that we’ve been playing games with ourselves. Only in the last few years have computers really started to become social. The introduction of Facebook’s new real-time homepage has offered a big boost to becoming more social. Facebook’s new Pages allows us to follow the actions of our favorite brands and celebrities throughout the day.
Gary Vaynerchuk has taken the stage. Vaynerchuk has begun to produce content on a new public profile, and is also offering some of his thoughts on the switch from a regular profile to his new Page. “I wanted more than 5,000 friends, that’s really what this allows me to do”. Vaynerchuk says that people are talking too much – this new product on Facebook allows people to listen, which is a key part of interaction. “It also saves me around 40 Emails a day of people asking for my friend requests”.
Dave Morin is now speaking about the new home page, which should now be available for everyone (it has been gradually rolled out to users over the last few days). The new page makes it easier to filter through the items in your stream, which is becoming increasingly necessary. Now your stream is giving you more control than ever.
Now shifting to Facebook Connect. Facebook Connect allows users to make their identities portable. It allows us to see what our friends are up to – he jokes “If your friend does something on the internet and nobody knows about it, did it actually happen?”.
Points out TechCrunch, where comments have become more authentic than ever before because users can log in with real names, which are linked to their Facebook accounts. Also pointing out other Connect-enabled sites like Geni and Joost. Aardvark just launched with Facebook Connect as well.
But Facebook Connect isn’t just about the web. He points out Xobni. Also, working alongside with Apple to seamlessly transfer photos to Facebook from iPhoto.
Loic Le Meur has just taken the stage to announce the first desktop client with Facebook Connect integration – Seesmic. Now available.
Morin has taken the stage once again, highlighting how Facebook is looking to be as open as possible.
One more thing….
(Dave Morin pulls a Steve Jobs)
Facebook Connect for the iPhone.
Facebook Connect is now on the iPhone, allowing iPhone apps to tap into your social graph for the first time. Users can connect across platforms (You can play a game on the iPhone with a Facebook friend using a browser-based version).
Launching today:
Playfish COO Sebastien de Halleux is announcing that three of the top ten games on Facebook are now on the iPhone (Geo Challenge, Word Challenge, and Who Has The Biggest Brain). Who Has The Biggest Brain is now available on the App Store (iTunes Link).
SGN CEO Shervin Pishevar has taken the stage. SGN apps have 10 million installs. SGN has created a new game called Agency Wars (iTunes Link). Gamers can play as CIA, MI6, and more. Can challenge your friends and assassinate them. Leave clues in the real world. iBowl (one of SGN’s popular Wii-like games) supports live gaming. Now you can bowl with your Facebook friends anywhere in the world live.
Tapulous’s Andrew Lacy is now speaking about Tap Tap Revenge 2, which just launched last week. It is currently number one on the App Store. The game is now a lot more social, with the introduction of Facebook Connect. Want to increase engagement, by being more social.
Patrick O’Donnell of Urbanspoon, a popular restaurant guide with over a million restaurants in its database. The iPhone app, which offers a slot-machine style recommendation engine for restaurants, has seen 4 million downloads and over 200 million ’shakes. Now supports Facebook Connect.
Joe Greenstein of Flixster, which is used by around 17 million people per month to get movie recommendations. iPhone app has been out for around 8 months, with 3.3 million users. But there wasn’t a good way to connect what you were doing on the phone with what you had done on the web. Just approved in the App Store with version 2.0.
Zynga’s Live Poker, Say 8’s Binary Game, and Whrrl have all introduced new apps featuring Facebook Connect. CitizenSports, Goodrec, limbo.
Morin has just annouced a New Round of Funding For fbFund – Just for Facebook Connect, and developers on the iPhone.
Q&A
Q: Will there be geotagging through the iPhone uploading?
A: Location is something we’re aware of, we know the world is heading that way, something we’re thinking about.
I liked the new homepage.
its not real time when u have to still refresh to get your NEW stream…sorry nice try FB
livefeed was real time…
Can’t beat this Facebook:
“CPO RJ Garbowicz was asked what is YourNight.com, he responded, “Picture this; you get home from work in the evenings and you turn on your PC, what do you do . . . answer email . . . browse your social networking or dating site . . . play online games . . . search videos and music . . . shop online . . . peruse job listings . . . check out local events . . . search for a business . . . go to your online banking . . . well you get the point, YourNight.com affords you all of this, and much, much more – all within one colossal, user-friendly portal . . . that’s all I can say for now, since we are still in stealth mode . . . however, as soon as we complete our Series A capital raise of $10 million our purpose and presence will be known.”
For more information, please contact:
RJ Garbowicz President/CPO Extreme Enterprises, Inc.
Phone:727.289.5522
Email:RJ@eeihq.com
PO Box 49271
St Petersburg, FL 33743″
Do you honestly think ANYONE, much less a VC, is going to think your start-up can “beat” Facebook?
Wow, just wow.
Kameron:
Yes. $2.5 Million has been invested into http://www.YourNight.com. Obviously, someone thinks the company has a go at it.
facebook platform is now left only for gaming, which field it cant enter due to unlikely stakeholders approval.. fb successfully used all tactics to kill all other kind of apps. Still long way to go for monopoly
I’m excited about this announcement. Making mobile apps social is a BIG development and will take the possibilities for mobile computing to a whole new level. Great move by Facebook.
cool
So where are the details and/or sample app?
Facebook has a habit of announcing things that aren’t publicly available except to their special partners.
Check out Urbanspoon. Just updated with FB connect. when you sign in using it you’re presented with a list of your FB friends who are also registered to use the app and shows you some stats on what they like and have rated. Then when you leave a review or rating, it shows up in your FB minifeed if you want.
Sweet! I am loving the new facebook redesign.
that’s because you are an fb fanboy
The new facebook design is really clean and smooth but i’m not seeing the real-time stream going on, refreshing is still needed.
http://twitter.com/cliffdailey
how a conference can claim to be a social and does not have live streaming is beyond me. its like having access to a telephone instead choosing to communicate writing on paper.
ConnectLocator.com – plug in
Stop this locator thingie dude…
Nice post! Also check out my site at http://macmaniapodcast.com
Thanks for the report from SXSW. I promise myself to be there next year.
The iPhone integration here is the killer app.
A recent attempt by Demiforce to attempt a similar social gaming network platform (Onyx) was recently cancelled.
I’m looking forward to trying out my Tap Tap and Binary Game now with this connection.
May even give some poker a try.
Thanks for the coverage.
wow… nice stuff!
Great post. Facebook is becoming better each day.
Wasn’t this announced at F8 last summer?
@M Facebook Connect for iPhone is publicly available. Check out the following blog posts to get the apps or learn how build your own:
http://blog.fac...ost=59768877130
http://develope...1&story=213
Way to get the info up there fast, Jeff
Can’t wait until I can play Lexulous on my iPhone!!
Can’t they make it “contacts” instead of “fans”? I think it might be off putting to some people. I’d like to have a public profile page but I don’t want to have fans.
Plus Facebook can steal some market away from LinkedIn this way, unless it’s trying to steal MySpace’s.
MySpace’s status updates have always been real time. Not sure why that is a big deal.
fb is taking major steps into a far more social web, along the way they are beating back major competitors with each new connection. being early and focused on the iphone has been huge. fb connect is blowing past google and heading towards becoming the standard. one thing is for sure fb may trip on the way but they are the most important social web company in the world.
This is a really smart move by facebook cominbing two cool technologies … social graph from facebook with your sleak mobile device.
Woohoo for Flixster!
OrgSync.com has created and built the first facebook connect library for Ruby on Rails. Read the post to learn more.
http://blog.org...nt-involvement/
These are all AWESOME developments!!
I’m enjoying the new Facebook Home Page and after two years on Facebook and 5k friends, I’m finally seeing peeps in my feed who I’d clean forgotten were in my network!
The new pages definitely allow for significantly more engagement!! & I do love the vanity URLs …am envious of Gary Vee with his http://facebook.com/gary – ha!!! Looking forward to Facebook rolling this feature out en masse… hopefully?!
Playing with the new Seesmic/Facebook desktop client now – an excellent start for sure!!
Cheers,
@marismith
So many great apps launched today. Can’t wait to see what comes next!
too bad dave morin is a complete douche. Seriously, talk to the guy for more than two second and you’ll marvel at how pricks like him somehow even landed the jackpot. He’s part of that Team Cyprus music video, partying away while the economy crumbles. Try subscribing to his fb/twitter feed. A self-indulgent asshole. It’s no wonder facebook platform has grown nowhere but into a pump and dump gaming platform.
Will I think the new FB design sucks. It’s confusing, ugly and the homepage is boring with less things than before. Don’t see the point of immitating twitter which is a small website comparing to FB (4M us visitors in feb ahah ??)
Looks like i’m not the only one to think that.
http://blog.fac...ost=59195087130
New facebook redesign sucks, come on people. It is messy, confusing and a twitter rip off. How many share does TC have in FB. Every other post is about a useless facebook thing.
Enough already. Report on some real tech news or innovation. TC get a #^@% backbone, stop being Zuck’s little pansy. Explore, research, provide some real journalism and hard hitting topics, not fluff paid pr posts from Facebook.
Anyone care to venture a guess about FB Connect in 5 years?
Defunct? Ubiquitous in the blogosphere? Ubiquitous on most websites? Facebook goes under without sufficient revenues?
I cant wait to see how fun this will be to develop on the iPhone!
test
The facebook connect idea is starting to cultivate in new areas, as demonstrated here. However, whenever there is a new program that combines users in a new way, I research it with this digital security site.
i think this is great being on the iphone, it will encourage others to check out and buy games if they are not free and make managing passwords and emails a lot simpler because it will all be tied through facebook
thanks……….
evt thx
thanks
oky thx. web mast.
facebook bence çok yararlı değil bilgiler çok açık
Apple’s iPod press conference tomorrow? Maybe, maybe not. But anyways, $200 sounds like a pretty good value