Vauhini Vara at WSJ reports Facebook is planning to provide service pages for integrating with other services. Before you think that this is the same Web 2.0 trend about opening up APIs, look for the phrase “within its popular website”.
On Thursday, the Palo Alto, Calif., company will announce a new strategy to let other companies provide their services on special pages within its popular Web site. These companies will be able to link into Facebook users’ networks of online friends, according to people familiar with the matter.
For instance, an online retailer could build a service in Facebook to let people recommend music or books to their friends, based on the relationships they’ve already established on the site. Or a media company could let groups of users share news articles with each other on a page inside Facebook.
This is the other way round, instead of opening up Facebook to others, this is way of opening up other services to Facebook members. It is a way of letting other companies provide their content to Facebook members. All gold for Facebook members, as they can now access more content and services. The services get visibility, might not get any direct revenue. The users outside Facebook get zilch! It aims at making the content richer for Facebook users, make them stay on Facebook for more time and help Facebook grow. This is the biggest difference, it still about Facebook, not the Web.
My first reaction as a Web 2.0 user is a bit negative, but it is only that – a reaction. I feel that this might attract only a certain type of services, the ones that target the most common profile of users on Facebook – the school and college students, which can be many. Others might find better ways of getting their own target audience. The earliest ones to hook on to this might be job sites and boards.
Tony Hung gives his impressions of the Facebook approach.
Is it good? Will it work? You never know. Maybe Facebook should start supporting OpenID. But maybe this might start off a new trend, making an about turn from the 2.0.
May 25th, 2007 at 8:56 am
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