Facebook's Ethan Beard outlines what the company is up to in the next six months.
(Credit: CNET / Josh Lowensohn)PALO ALTO, Calif.--Facebook on Wednesday took the wraps off its brand new development road map, unveiling changes and features the company is planning to implement within the next three to six months.
Many of the changes are smaller, simply rearrangements of certain parts of the user interface. However, the company is also making some radical moves like enforcing badly written applications and enabling developers to acquire user e-mail addresses as well as create Facebook-like sites outside of the social network's walls.
Ethan Beard, Facebook's director of platform marketing, who gave the presentation in Facebook's headquarters here, said that the one thing the company kept hearing from developers was that they needed to know what the company was working on ahead of time--and not just for short-term development, but a year down the line. "You want to know what's going on inside of Facebook," he said. "And today is to provide you with a lot more predictability."
That predictability revolves around the company's road map, which now sits on a new developer site. Beard says that it will remain updated with new items, planned changes, and APIs as they are announced. The company is also making publicly available a bug list, which will show developers problems with the site that Facebook is working on, as well as how they are being prioritized to be fixed.
The changes for users
The new user navigation menu takes place of the long bar that used to sit on the bottom of the page.
(Credit: Facebook)So what are some of the big changes users will see? The first is that Facebook is doing away with many of the visual and organization changes it's made in the last two years. That includes the removal of the Windows Start bar-like app launcher and notification bar that sat at the bottom of the page. That's being moved over to the left side of the page where things like filters currently reside.
The new navigation bar will house new quick jumps to menus for both games and applications--something for which Facebook is making a notable distinction. Both will serve as a way for users to get a bird's-eye view of what's happening in games or the applications they've been using, as well as what their friends are up to. The company will also be making it easier for users to add third-party applications to the left side navigation bar with some new code that makes it a one-click affair.
Alongside the new left side navigation Facebook is also trying to make more of a distinction between notifications that are from apps and those that are sent from other users. This change involves taking notifications out of the sometimes-dreaded notification box (which will be soon be getting the ax) and giving developers a new way to notify users with alert badges that pop up as counters. And for notifications that are sent from other users, these will soon be found in users' Facebook in-boxes instead.
The changes for developers
One of the biggest upcoming changes for developers deals with Facebook's level of user privacy protection. The company will be letting users give app developers their e-mail address. In return they can remove their own Facebook in-box from app notification equation. This also applies to Facebook Connect, so third-party companies that use it for log-ins can send important messages directly to a user's primary e-mail instead of their Facebook in-box where it might get lost.
The Connect program will also be joined by a new developer API called Open Graph that essentially lets site owners create a page on any Web site that has the same features as one of Facebook's fan pages. These will allow users to sign up to be a fan with their Facebook credentials and use parts of the site as if they were on Facebook proper. In turn, their actions will be able to show up on their Facebook profile and news feeds. Beard said that the Open Graph API is simply a continuation of the move to add Facebook objects as well as people to third-party sites. "The graph does not necessarily have to exist in facebook," he said. "It can also live on the Web."
Facebook is improving its analytics with a new system that developers can use with third-party analytics tools.
(Credit: CNET / Josh Lowensohn)Fan pages are not the only thing to escape Facebook's walled garden though. Beard outlined the company's plans to offer developers a way to view a deeper level of analytics for their apps. The reports, which Beard says are much better than the Facebook's current Insight system, will be able to be sent to third-party analytics engines where they can be stacked up alongside performance metrics Facebook wouldn't have otherwise been able to provide.
Keeping bad developers out
Besides some cosmetic and back-end changes, Facebook is also stepping up how it handles developers and applications that don't conform to the site's rules and regulations. Part of that is simplifying its platform policies from 14 pages to just three. Beard says the extraneous language has been cut down, so that hopefully more people will read it.
In addition to policy, Facebook is doing away with its six-month-old verified apps program in place of verifying every single app that passes a certain use threshold. This means that Facebook is going to be evaluating every app on its service to make sure it meets the company's guidelines and getting rid of ones that might have otherwise flown under the radar.
Other tidbits
• Facebook canvas pages are now getting a special blue bar on top that removes much of the Facebook branding and user interface. Beard said that the move was largely to help developers make their canvas pages more immersive.
• Profile boxes will be disappearing, and tabs will be slightly more narrow.
• The new Facebook games tab may implement leader boards
• Facebook is reworking its friends selector so that when a user is picking friends to invite or send a message, it will let them use the same filters they use to group their friends. Facebook is also working on a way to suggest a shortlist of users based on recent, or overall activity.
• Developers will be getting a live view into the Facebook Platform status. This is kind of like Twitter's status blog and will show all known problems as well as how hard Facebook's APIs are being hit.
More information about the new developer APIs can be found on Facebook's developer site.
Social-network creator Ning is letting those networks get even more customized: it's unveiled Ning Apps, the company's full plunge into the developer platform craze. It goes into private beta on Thursday and will launch in full later in May.
This announcement is a long time coming, as Ning launched a limited application gallery in October--and that was still nearly a year after it was among the original launch partners for the OpenSocial developer application consortium.
There are a couple of things that make Ning Apps different from the social platforms found on the likes of Facebook or MySpace. While the earlier, limited array of apps offered on Ning was strictly for members to embed on their profiles, the formal Ning Apps product is geared toward the creators and administrators of Ning social networks. They can add an application--from a cash donation widget for a nonprofit network, to a ticket sales app for a band's fan page, to a live video stream of what-have-you--and it'll mesh right into the social network.
"A Ning network creator selects one of these apps, that functions basically like a full-fledged feature on the social network, and by choosing to install an app the app has a presence on the front page of the social network," Jason Rosenthal, Ning's senior vice president of business operations, told CNET News. "It gets a dedicated tab within a social network, and perhaps most interestingly, by default the app is installed on every (member's) profile page of that social network."
Ning, co-founded by Silicon Valley notable Marc Andreessen, doesn't yet make any extra revenue off Ning Apps, even though the possibility is there for the social network to take a cut of financial transactions or ad revenue. "It does open an interesting new monetization opportunity for us," Rosenthal said, "but not today."
The company announced last month that 1 million social networks had been created on its platform.
Social-network builder Ning has deployed its support for developer applications for OpenSocial, something that it has been planning to do since Google kick-started the open-source project nearly a year ago. (It is now an independent organization.)
A Ning profile with the OpenSocial 'BuddyPoke' app added.
(Credit: Ning)As part of the launch, a directory of 30 applications will be available for Ning members to embed in their profiles, which they use for any of the hundreds of thousands of networks created with Ning. They'll have variable "skins" to adopt the design of the profile around them and blend in, the company has said. Incorporation into the OpenSocial app directory on Ning will be selective, so it won't be a developer free-for-all.
A few OpenSocial apps had gone live on Ning in beta over the past year, including one from social music service Last.fm (which is owned by CNET News publisher CBS Interactive).
You still can't embed OpenSocial apps on Ning networks, just profiles--but that will change, CEO Gina Bianchini said to CNET News, when future versions of OpenSocial (the current one is 0.7) are developed. "In its first incarnation, it looks and feels a lot like what you'd be doing on a MySpace profile or on a Facebook profile in terms of adding apps," she explained, "but what's unique about us is that we have half a million social networks and they'll want an app for their network as well."
From the Future of Web Apps conference in London, Google engineer Kevin Marks praised the incorporation of Ning into OpenSocial, which he helped build. "The nice thing about Ning is that we're going from about 100 social networks to about 500,000 social networks," Marks said to CNET News.
The question still remains, though as to whether Ning would opt to support Facebook applications--still not compatible with OpenSocial--the way social network Friendster has.
"We'd love to support Facebook apps," said Bianchini, who co-founded Ning with veteran entrepreneur Marc Andreessen. "Right now, Facebook hasn't neccessarily set it up in a really clear, programmatic way...(Facebook) has talked about it, then came back from it, and it's a little bit in limbo right now in terms of really what and how they would want other social networks to support Facebook apps."
Facebook's favorite music service, iLike, has officially launched its developer platform. The company first hinted at this several months ago and CNET News reported last week that it was nearing its debut. With the platform, approved developers will be able to access the iLike API and work it into their own sites.
"We've always adopted a strategy of syndication, of going where the consumers are instead of trying to bring them to us," CEO Ali Partovi told CNET News on Tuesday. Indeed, iLike launched first an iTunes plugin and then a Facebook application to spread its product around. Partovi said that it was "natural" for iLike to go for a developer platform strategy after becoming so successful as a platform app itself.
But there's an interesting twist to iLike's platform: it's specifically focused on making iLike playlists available and openly collaborative. That's evident in the list of launch partners: the forthcoming Connected Weddings application on Facebook, for example, will let wedding guests add to a suggested song playlist; the Flixster movies application will use iLike's API to let members build movie soundtracks to accompany the film's page in the Flixster directory; the set of TV-fan apps built by Watercooler will let fans also construct the soundtrack that played in the background in any episode of a given TV show. Other partners include Classtop.com, the Social Gaming Network's Free Gifts application, Slide's FunSpace, Jambool, Mesmo.com, and Zimride's Carpools application.
The partners don't end with social applications, either: IAC's Evite will be using iLike's API for a "playlist" tab on each invitation, so that guests can build a party soundtrack, and both TypePad and Google have built embeddable blog widgets to incorporate music.
Playlists are hot, and not just because teen quasi-heartthrob Michael Cera is about to star in a movie about them. The forthcoming MySpace Music heavily features playlist creation, and start-up Muxtape caught on as a hipster sensation before being pulled under mysterious circumstances that likely involved the RIAA. Several other social music services also offer playlist features--Imeem has been doing it for years.
iLike's playlists, as with the rest of the music on the site, have full-length streaming songs available in collaboration with subscription service Rhapsody. That means that you can listen to 25 songs for free before needing to sign up for a Rhapsody account (if you don't, you're restricted to 30-second samples). Imeem and MySpace Music, on the other hand, offer fewer restrictions on free full-length playback.
It's not perfect, mostly because the music is restricted to what's available in iLike's library. While testing out the app I could only access one of the two albums by one of my favorite bands, the Fratellis, and I'm sure there are plenty more instances of missing albums and artists.
But music fans, not to mention iLike's partners, have reason to be psyched: this is a legitimately cool feature. And the struggling Rhapsody, which has been unable to really eat into iTunes' market share, could get a handful of new subscribers out of it: you know, when tipsy party guests wonder why song No. 26 on their Evite playlist won't play, and are more than willing to cough up a subscription fee to keep the beat going.
As rumored earlier, Facebook will indeed be announcing an open-source project for its developer platform. The social network released a statement Tuesday to clarify the gossip--while still not offering much in the way of detail.
"We're working on an open-source initiative that is meant to help application developers better understand Facebook Platform and more easily build applications, whether it's by running their own test servers, building tools, or optimizing their applications," a statement from Facebook read.
"As Facebook Platform continues to mature, open-sourcing the infrastructure behind it is a natural step so developers can build richer social applications and share what they've learned with the ecosystem," the statement continued. "Additional details will be released soon."
So it's still not clear as to just how extensive the open-source project, which TechCrunch says is called "fbOpen," will be: whether the entire platform will become an open-source environment or whether there will simply be more open-source principles scattered throughout the technology.
Regardless, this will likely be framed as a grassroots, pro-developer move at a time when some vocal developers have criticized Facebook for being too "corporate."
Just when you thought the landscape of social-networking developer APIs couldn't get any more complicated, here comes another curveball.
Facebook will reportedly open-source the code for its application platform, according to TechCrunch. The announcement may be just days away.
Facebook representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
It makes sense to do it now: the Facebook Platform just hit its one-year anniversary, and while it remains extraordinarily popular, developers have found an alternative in OpenSocial. Created by Google and then spun off into a nonprofit organization, OpenSocial is an open-source developer standard that any participating social site can use. Most of the big players in the scene, including MySpace, LinkedIn, and Google's Orkut, are on board--but not Facebook.
Facebook's image in the eyes of the "open Web" community also took a hit when popular blogger Robert Scoble said his account had been banned when he tried to export his Facebook contacts to Plaxo.
Facebook, however, has shown signs of wanting to expand its code beyond its own platform: Bebo, the social network that was acquired by AOL earlier this year, has a platform that accepts Facebook applications in addition to OpenSocial ones, and it seems logical that this would eventually reach sites other than Bebo.
Facebook announced earlier this month that it would be evolving its developer API into "Facebook Connect," a way to sync Facebook accounts with other sites like Digg. The announcement came within days of MySpace's "Data Availability" and Google's "Friend Connect," a set of new projects hinting that social-networking properties aren't just going to be standalone sites anymore.
But the question remains, especially given the scant detail of the latest rumor, about whether "open source" means truly open source or some variety of "extensible." Facebook has been redefining a whole lot of what we think about the Web, so this may be no exception.
This post was updated at 1:56 p.m. PDT.
Social network Facebook announced Friday the debut of Facebook Connect, a new technology for members to connect their profile data and authentication credentials to external Web sites. It makes the company the latest major Web site to embrace the concept of data portability.
The formal announcement was made through a post on Facebook's developer blog by senior platform manager Dave Morin, who has been one of the company's most visible evangelists in the developer community over the past year. Facebook Connect will launch within the next few weeks.
Through Facebook Connect, members will be able to use their Facebook identities across the Web--profile photos, names, photos, friends, groups, events, and other information. Facebook profile content, for example, could appear on other social sites, and Facebook event listings could theoretically connect with external event and invitation services.
Facebook will handle the authentication process, and while privacy controls have not been made clear, the company has stressed that user security will be a priority. And there's reason to believe Facebook will be particularly careful: The company already partners with outside services to share data in its Beacon advertising program, and the PR missteps surrounding Beacon's launch are something that Facebook likely does not want to repeat.
It's a big move for the site. Until this point, Facebook has had a reputation for keeping its cards close to its chest--even banning the account of popular blogger Robert Scoble when he used a script to export his Facebook contact list to Plaxo. But Facebook has a representative in the Data Portability Workgroup, and executives have said that Facebook has wanted to bring its information outside the site eventually.
"These are just a few steps Facebook is taking to make the vision of data portability a reality for users worldwide," Morin wrote in his blog post. "We believe the next evolution of data portability is about much more than data. It's about giving users the ability to take their identity and friends with them around the Web, while being able to trust that their information is always up to date and always protected by their privacy settings."
Last month, Facebook started partnering with other social sites to pull external data into Facebook's "mini-feeds," displaying user activity from the likes of Flickr and Yelp on Facebook profile pages.
No partner Web sites for Facebook Connect have been announced yet, but director of platform Ben Ling explained to CNET News.com that "there's been a lot of partner interest." One partner, however, was displayed in mockups on Facebook's developer blog: social news site Digg.
The technical details also remain unannounced. "We're not announcing the details of the partner integration today," Ling said. "What we're announcing at a high level is that we will have a program that's built into partners large and small, and they will be able to access Facebook Connect."
Facebook kick-started the social-networking developer platform craze when it launched the Facebook Platform a year ago. But on Thursday, bigger rival MySpace made a big move when it opened its own profile content to outside sites--in a sense the reverse of Facebook's famous decision to welcome external developers onto its own site. Facebook representatives said Friday that there are now more than 350,000 developers from 225 countries developing for the platform, although one prominent programmer said earlier this week that he believes activity may be slowing.
Facebook has also held over 50 "developer garage" events in 10 countries, and Ling said that Facebook Connect will be discussed at future "garages."
One Facebook insider, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said to CNET News.com that the project had been in the works for quite some time, and said the announcement wasn't issued as a response to MySpace's "Data Availability" project. "We actually think what they are up to is pretty cool."
Representatives from MySpace were not immediately available for comment.
MySpace has partnered with the likes of eBay and Yahoo for Data Availability, which means that many of the Web's biggest names are now warming up to the idea of social-network identity portability. It's likely to be popular with users eager to quell the onset of "social fatigue" from too many logins and profiles, but privacy and security advocates may raise a red flag--as might advertisers, to whom Facebook's walled-in user base was ideal for targeted marketing. Spreading that data across the Web could complicate matters on that front.
This post was updated at 5:15 a.m. PDT on April 28 with comment from MySpace in the last paragraph.
And now for your daily dose of minor social-networking developer application announcements: MySpace.com announced on Thursday that the "application gallery" for its developer platform has made its official debut. Members of the site can browse the offerings and add applications created for the OpenSocial-compatible platform to their profiles.
"The MySpace Application Gallery enables the most meaningful and diverse online experience available on the Internet to date," MySpace CEO and co-founder Chris DeWolfe said in a statement. "MySpace was the original open platform, and the MySpace Application Gallery is the evolution of that vision, taking MySpace users around the world to the next level, and empowering them to take control of their online presence in new and exciting ways."
The MySpace Apps gallery has been live since March in a beta phase; now the only major change is that it's linked from the home page and on members' "control panels." MySpace has said that more than 2.1 million applications have been installed so far; that's notable, but the site has many more than 100 million users, so 2.1 million means that it still has a ways to go before it reaches the viral wildfire that Facebook's platform achieved early on.
At this week's Web 2.0 Expo, MySpace executive Allen Hurff admitted that the News Corp.-owned social network was seeing slow adoption of its developer platform. Putting prominent links to the application gallery on the home page, ideally, will help.
MySpace representatives said over the weekend that the slow roll-out was intentional with regard to stability and safety, and that everything was on track. "Based on developer and user feedback we've received, the MySpace Developer Platform is meeting all internal expectations and goals," a statement from the company read. "The lead up to the official (platform) launch on Thursday has been thoughtful and deliberate and, most importantly, it has been reflective of feedback we've received from users around the world."
And now, the latest in social network developer platform announcements: Orkut, the community site owned by Google, has rolled out a directory of applications to its users in India and will continue to expand geographically over the next few weeks.
India, along with Brazil, is one of Orkut's main hubs of popularity; in Brazil, it faces many of the same issues that massive social networks like Facebook and MySpace do in the U.S. Despite having been developer in-house in Google's Mountain View, Calif.-based headquarters, the site has never really taken off stateside. Meanwhile, rival MySpace is currently launching an India-centric portal that will compete with Orkut.
Here's something interesting: At least for the time being, Orkut users are limited to 25 applications per profile. Google representatives were not immediately available for comment on whether this is permanent restriction.
Announcements about social network developer platforms are a dime a dozen, now that Facebook's example made developer applications practically mandatory, but Orkut has drawn particular attention because it's owned by Google. The OpenSocial API, on which Orkut's platform is based, was launched by Google last year.
Google has since announced that it will relinquish control of OpenSocial, turning the project into a nonprofit organization in collaboration with Yahoo, News Corp.'s MySpace.com, and other partners.
Right now, some may look like the online equivalent of a quaint corner store. But catalogs of online applications are the front lines of a brewing battle among platform-as-a-service providers.
Start-up Coghead on Tuesday plans to launch Coghead Gallery, an online store where people in small businesses can hunt for applications.
There's more than one 'app exchange' in town. Coghead launches Gallery for third-party applications.
(Credit: Coghead)The applications, written with Coghead's visual-development tool, run on its hosted platform. The platform, built using Adobe Systems' Flex, runs on Amazon Web Services.
At the start, there will be about 30 partners listing their business applications. Coghead's software is aimed at small development shops or tech-savvy businesspeople.
Although far smaller, its approach is similar to that of Salesforce.com's AppExchange, where people can find more than 800 customized applications written for Salesforce's development platform.
Hosted development platforms and tools, also called platform-as-a-service, are where a lot of software development is going, according to Web entrepreneurs. Rather than purchase a rack of servers and a software stack to run applications, developers can rely on a hosted platform to offer on-demand applications.
For platform providers, building the largest ecosystem of online Web developers helps accrue business, much the way Microsoft woos users of its development tools to drive sales of Windows and other stack software.
Although not a complete development environment, the latest entrant to this platform-as-a-service category is Google, with its App Engine, still in beta test version. Google now lets developers run their Python applications on the company's massive computing infrastructure.
Last week, Google opened up its own marketplace for listing third-party applications written for its enterprise products, including Google Apps and its search appliance. And on Monday, Google and Salesforce announced that Salesforce's customer relationship management, or CRM, applications, will be integrated into Google Apps through the Salesforce development platform, Force.com.
Open source comes to platform-as-a-service
Coghead's development service and gallery are specifically aimed at small businesses, both developers and customers. It is aiming to recruit value-added resellers or independent consultants with 2 to 20 people, according to company CEO Paul McNamara.
With a hosted development environment, they can write a Web application and get into the software-as-a-service business, he said.
"They used to sell their time for money by doing custom application development. It's a tough business because you're always chasing your next lunch, and if you take vacation, you aren't billing," McNamara said.
"Our value to them is that we let them transform the business by building an application for one customer and then selling it to other customers around the world," he said.
Ultimately, this model is disruptive because many more companies can get off the ground without the need for a large capital investment from venture investors, McNamara said. He added that Salesforce's AppExchange tends to focus more on large independent software vendors, or ISVs.
Developers on the Gallery can choose to take an open-source approach to listing, called the Open Definition model. They can make the template for their application available to others to copy, modify, and distribute--much like open-source projects allow people to tweak the source code.
Since most people don't actually work with source code when they use the Coghead service, they aren't actually using the source code. Another class of applications will be "IP protected," which means that customers can't copy and modify the applications.
Coghead plans to make money from Gallery by collecting a monthly fee for using the platform and listing the applications.
