2 posts tagged “facebook”
Tim O'Reilly Research team just published a book about facebook application.
The truth for me is: if facebook has no such big inventory of interesting app, i will never use facebook. Marc Anderson's comparison of 1994 Geocities and facebook list of function (and Ning of cause) give us a clear pictures about the importance of the app. Without those app or functionality, facebook or Ning will be like Geocities, only personal homepage and photo uploading.
Let's back to the economy: who makes money? First is the platform itself, like Amazon.com, Salesforce.com, second life... Secondly, the most popular app on the platform. But how about the app on the tail? Check the curve again. Its only top 50 of facebook app and decline so fast. Remember they have more than 5000 app? The tail is really very very looooong!
Last week I attended the techcrucnch40 in San Francisco. the big guy of the event is a young guy... Marc Zukerberg, founer of facebook.
During his conversation with Michael Arrington on conference, Marc Zukerberg announced a grant program called fbFund to award the most brilliant development teams on facebook. according to him this project is "to support the ecosystem and help it grow". the growth rate of facebook widgets has already incredible high -- the platform idea launched in May with 85 app, now in 4 months, number of the app increased to 3000! the sum of the fbFund cash award ranges from $25000 to $250000.(we remember that facebook first round founding was $500000). the allocation of that will decided by a panel including Zukerberg himself, Linkedin's Reid Hoffman, and two of the board members of facebook like first investor Peter Thiel.
After the 45 mins chats with Michael, no media had the chance to interview young Mr. Zukerberg -- by the company of several bodyguards, he left the conference room right away. no one can stop him actually. amazing indeed.
Days after the event, WSJ released the news that Microsoft was interested in acquiring 5% of facebook's share by $500M. the facebook phenomena is there in front of our eyes. as i know, there will be 5 conferences focus on facebook as platform for application development: graphing social patterns, community next: platform, SNAP summit, App-Camp2007 and web community forum: facebook, all held in San Francisco or Seattle in the coming 2or 3 months. check them out and see who will give keynote there. facebook as platform is a real thing. but i haven't notice there are active developer on facebook platform from Asia.
