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17 July 2007
How Open is Facebook, asks Richard MacManus
Posted by Paul Miller at July 17, 2007 04:28 PM
As part of 'Facebook week' over on Read/WriteWeb, Richard MacManus asks “How open is Facebook, Really?”
His post covers some of the ground I've been probing recently, and ends with;
“Facebook is an excellent web development platform - there is significant activity and innovation happening on it (which is why we're devoting a whole week to Facebook on R/WW). But in the end, the data isn't out in the open and developers must adhere to Facebook standards (FMBL, FQL) as well as some Web standards (REST APIs). So Facebook is not open, really.
I guess the real question is: does it matter? Well the Web's history gives us the answer to that. Yes it does matter, because when any company controls a closed, proprietary Internet platform - history shows that it ends in hubris (e.g. AOL, Microsoft). Facebook doesn't control social networking yet, far from it. But it's feasible that they will in future, if/when MySpace is vanquished.”
It's good to see this topic continuing, with the ideal solution being the further opening up of Facebook rather than its bypassing in favour of more web-friendly players...
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