Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: 50M Facebook users don’t care about OpenSocial APIs
OK, now this is totally misguided and wrong. I like Facebook Platform a whole lot, but to think that those 50M users won’t care about the results from OpenSocial is like saying those 50M people don’t surf the open Internet. Its also like AOL’s hubris in the 90′s: we have 12 million people (or whatever) that are happy enough here, why would they want the Internet? Come on now. Being polemic for the sake of being polemic is retarded.
[From Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: 50M Facebook users don't care about OpenSocial APIs]
In my experience, facebook has attracted all my “non-geeky” friends to “network socially” via the web.
Prior to facebook, most of them thought using the internet was the province of nerds. Given the network effect & stickiness of facebook, I can’t see my non-geeky friends (ie normal people) switching en-mass to another site just because its “open”. There needs to be another killer feature (which can’t be replicated in facebook)
Your AOL example is flawed – there was another killer feature – all the websites outside of AOL…
I have yet to see how open social will cater properly for privacy. This is one area that facebook got right and made my non-ggeky friends feel comfortable. Of all my friends (including the geeky & Muso’s, non of them use their real names on myspace)
I totally agree Opensocial is a good thing, but don’t hold your hopes for probably 40-45m of those facebook users switching.
Then thats your friends. I though the “Internet as the place for nerds” thing broke long ago, at least in my experience.
I’m all for Facebook, but I think a universal platform API (which Google may or may not provide) is only a good thing. A container which abstracts interfaces to different web apps, and to each other (key point) would rock much more than a single platform would.