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AllFacebook.com has posted the attached image of Facebook’s “Suggests a friend to me” feature. Not sure what make a friend suggestable to another Facebook user, but if this algorithm can eventually be applied to the giant global graph, the web will truly become become a social graph.
The Facebook JavaScript client library allows you to make Facebook API calls through JavaScript code from any Web site and makes it easy to create AJAX Facebook applications. Since the library does not require any server side code on your server, you can now create a Facebook application that can be hosted on any Web site that serves static HTML.
Applications that use this client library should be configured to load in an iframe, not be rendered with FBML. This applies to either iframe Facebook applications that users access through the Facebook Web site or applications that users access directly on the application’s own Web site. The library supports every Facebook API method, except:
Using this client library is easy. Just follow these two steps:
That’s all. Now you start to call the Facebook API through JavaScript…
Update: MySpace, SixApart, and Bebo have officially joined the OpenSocial!
TechCrunch >_ “OpenSocial is a set of three common APIs, defined by Google with input from partners, that allow developers to access core functions and information at social networks:
Hosts agree to accept the API calls and return appropriate data. Google won’t try to provide universal API coverage for special use cases, instead focusing on the most common uses. Specialized functions/data can be accessed from the hosts directly via their own APIs. (more…)
By KEVIN J. DELANEY, ROBERT A. GUTH and VAUHINI VARA
October 25, 2007
Microsoft Corp.’s $240 million investment in Facebook Inc. — a three-year-old company with more promise than profit — represents a huge bet that the online advertising boom will continue and the popular social networking site will be among the biggest beneficiaries.
The software giant said yesterday that it will buy a 1.6% stake in Facebook, beating out Google Inc. after intense lobbying. The deal places a $15 billion valuation on the closely held Palo Alto, Calif., startup. Facebook, which runs a site where people set up personal Web pages, expects to break even this year, on a cash-flow basis, with revenue of $150 million, according to people familiar with the company.
{via TechCrunch} :: MySpace is gearing up to launch MySpace Platform, according to a number of third party developers who’ve been contacted for input on the product. While this has been rumored since
June, this is the first indication that the service is preparing to actually launch. And we also have information that suggests that it will be announced next week at the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco.The new developer platform, like Facebook Platform which was announced in May, will essentially be a set of APIs and a new markup language that will allow third party developers to create applications that run within MySpace. Developers will be able to include Flash applets, iFrame elements and Javascript snippets in their applications, and access most of the core MySpace resources (profile information, friend list, activity history, etc.). Applications will need to be hosted on MySpace servers.
And in a big change in strategy for MySpace, developers will be able to serve their own advertising within their applications, and keep 100% of the revenue (Facebook also allows this).
Suddenly Facebook, with nearly 5,500 third party applications, has significant competition around their platform - Within a month both MySpace and Google (see our post here) will probably have launched their own services. Platform competition is great for developers, but it also means they need to create and maintain separate code for each platform they choose to play on. Someone is hopefully working on a startup that will streamline that process for people. Whoever does it first, and best, can have a winner on their hands.
Below is an interesting article on Internet Bubble indicators from WSJ:
SAN FRANCISCO — The Federal Reserve monitors things like inventory levels and housing starts to gauge the economy’s direction. In Silicon Valley, old-timers have some leading indicators of their own.
The goofy-names index, for example, is back near its previous high. Consider Orgoo Inc., which helps people organize all their Web communications. Or Zipidee Inc., a purveyor of “digital goods” such as cellphone ring tones. “Are these names of dogs or are they names of companies?” asks Kate Mitchell, a venture capitalist in Foster City, Calif.
The rate of odd-looking start-ups, too, is on the rise. One called Startup Schwag exists solely to deliver a monthly package of T-shirts and other goodies bearing logos of other tech start-ups. Rapper MC Hammer, known for 1990s hits like “U Can’t Touch This” and a 1996 bankruptcy filing, is chief strategy officer of an online-video start-up called DanceJam. PlaySpan Inc., a Web-gaming outfit that raised $6.5 million, boasted on its Web site that it had been founded by a fifth-grader.
Then there’s this familiar froth indicator: Some office landlords in Silicon Valley are again accepting stock in still-private start-ups in lieu of rent.
“It is absolutely déjà vu,” says David Chao, a venture capitalist in Menlo Park, Calif., who reports seeing lots of bad business ideas, from ever-younger entrepreneurs. “There’s just as much junk now as there was in 1999,” he says.
Speaking the Graphing Social Patterns conference (covering the business and technology of Facebook) in San Jose today, Linkedin founder and chairman Reid Hoffman poured cold water on the notion that a single social graph would prevail. “One graph that includes all types of relationships in one perfectly orchestrated universe is a geek, blogger dream. It’s not mass market,” Hoffman said. “The amount of effort in building and maintaining it is hard. It may be important to have different baseline rules for different brands and different networks.”
“The simple misconception is that any communications infrastructure can be used for anything. The question is what is the use case. The interesting overlap is public profile presence in search engines and the potential business applications that can be built on the social graph,” he added.
Just as one Web site cannot be all things to all people, and there won’t be one graph binding them all, Hoffman said. “Diversity is part of what makes the ecosystem good and interesting for consumers.”
(more…)
According to AllFacebook.com, “An extremely reliable anonymous source has informed me about Facebook launching an iTunes competitor within their company. Over the past months Facebook has been searching for a CEO to head up this new subdivision. Facebook has been pursuing agreements with a number of record labels. The target market was supposedly college students but unfortunately details are limited.One thing is for sure though. If Facbook decides to launch an iTunes competitor the existing music applications on the platform are not going to be happy (unless of course they are granted permission to become a lead generation tool for Facebook). This may be a little late on the timing though if downloadable music is eventually going to become free. Regardless, Facebook has been working on this project for many months now. I heard rumors of this back in March but none had been substantiated.
My most recent informant knows one of the people being interviewed for the position. The only thing under question at this point is how are they going to integrate this properly. Also, is this a tangent to their primary business model? Would you buy music from Facebook?”
“All these rumors about Facebook getting a massive investment from one corporate behemoth or another have got to make you wonder: Why would a company that is expecting revenues of $150 million, and profits to boot, need fresh capital? Why would a company whose dominance of the social networking space is being touted as some sort of manifest destiny possibly need this sudden influx of cash?
That is the real $300 million to $500 million dollar question. The Wall Street Journal thinks it’s to build an advertising platform to cash in on its fast growth. And while that might be so, there are other, more pressing needs for all that money. The biggest one: Andrew Cuomo.
The New York attorney general has started investigating the safety measures Facebook has put in place, and based on his preliminary investigations, he is not happy. His staff has found sexual predators and a wide variety of pornographic material, including images and videos, prompting him to issue a subpoena.
“My office is concerned that Facebook’s promise of a safe website is not consistent with its performance in policing its site and responding to complaints,” Cuomo said in a press release.
