May 25, 2007 at 12:42 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
One of the fastest growing social networks on the planet just took a big leap of faith. Facebook has officially torn down the walled garden, exposing key APIs enabling developers to extend the current Facebook experience.
This is huge. Facebook is attempting to make the leap from web site to web platform. Their social functionality (friend lists, messaging, etc) and publication space (profiles) are now tools with which developers can forge the next generation of social apps. There are some ‘gotchas.’ For instance, Javascript is not allowed. This is pretty much the norm with all social networks. Sorry. And, if you want to really leverage some of the deep functionality you need to use FBML, their proprietary markup language. I am not a big fan of that, but it’s a start.
Although it is not quite baked, Zuckerberg and Company are on the right track. For folks in the widget economy, this is absolutely huge. We now have the ability and permission to leverage one of the biggest audiences on the social web. Clearspring – for example – has been working with Facebook during the ‘F8 Preview’ of this platform to extend our existing Facebook integration and empower our growing development community with improved viral services and increased distribution reach.
Software juggernaut Microsoft managed to become the de facto desktop platform by successfully leveraging the 3rd party development. If the kids from Facebook can pull off a similar coup, they will go from a destination with tens of millions of users, to one with hundreds of millions of users. Think that’s big? You ain’t seen nothing yet. A couple more well-placed chess moves will position Facebook to compete with the GYM (Google, Yahoo, MSFT) crowd.
What is the next big move? A public offering. They are reportedly in the black. Microsoft has reportedly offered them a rather sizable guarantee (hundreds of millions) in exchange for the right to monetize their search. The fact that they are buying up all the property along University Ave (where their HQ is in Palo Alto), is a firm indicator that they have something far more interesting up their sleeves than a fat acquisition. My prediction is that they will file their S1 by mid-next year. With the capital garnered from an IPO, they will be free to acquire services in core areas (search, commerce, etc), continuing their platform push and giving the digital media world yet another new-comer to worry about.
So let’s assume that this happens. Facebook goes public. How will this impact venture investment in the Web 2.0 space? This would be the first real public liquidity event in a space characterized by acquisition-centric exits (Flickr, YouTube, etc). Will this be the proverbial spark to light the real boom? Will this be a catalyst the likes of the Netscape public offering during Web 1.0? Is Facebook the next Google? I don’t really know. But it sure is fun to think about.
Anyway congrats to Dave Morin and team for pulling it off. See you guys on the flip-side.
Technorati tags: facebook, platform, clearspring, widget
Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that Typepad has released a new offering - Typepad Pages. According to Typepad:
With the new TypePad Pages, you can use all the power of TypePad's posting tools to create as many individual web pages as you want. And those pages have all the power of TypePad's widgets and rich media features, automatically inheriting the look and feel you've chosen for your blog.
Long story short, Six Apart is changing the game yet again. With this release they are establishing that Typepad is not just another blogging tool, but a general-purpose web publication platform. If you couple this with their continued expansion of their widget gallery, this paints an interesting picture. They are actively moving joining the general movement of blogs, startpages, and social networks converging towards a unified information architecture – the Social Aggregator.
I wonder how long it will be before they have widget management capabilities like our friends at Netvibes. My guess is you will see a ton more ‘Netvibes-esque’ features coming from players outside the Startpage space sooner than you think…
technorati tags: typepad, aggregator, widget, widget, web 2.0
Hooray! Clearspring just served 3B widgets. Not bad for a couple months, eh? :)
Check out our handy-dandy counter located on the upper right hand corner of clearspring.com to take a look. I can't wait to see what happens when we release our open community platform. Sign-up here to get on the preview list. We are releasing the next wave of accounts now.
Congrats to the entire team!
technorati tags: clearspring, widgets, syndication
clearspring, 
wedding
One of the fastest growing social networks on the planet just took a big leap of faith. Facebook has officially torn down the walled garden, exposing key APIs enabling developers to extend the current Facebook experience.
This is huge. Facebook is attempting to make the leap from web site to web platform. Their social functionality (friend lists, messaging, etc) and publication space (profiles) are now tools with which developers can forge the next generation of social apps. There are some ‘gotchas.’ For instance, Javascript is not allowed. This is pretty much the norm with all social networks. Sorry. And, if you want to really leverage some of the deep functionality you need to use FBML, their proprietary markup language. I am not a big fan of that, but it’s a start.
Although it is not quite baked, Zuckerberg and Company are on the right track. For folks in the widget economy, this is absolutely huge. We now have the ability and permission to leverage one of the biggest audiences on the social web. Clearspring – for example – has been working with Facebook during the ‘F8 Preview’ of this platform to extend our existing Facebook integration and empower our growing development community with improved viral services and increased distribution reach.
Software juggernaut Microsoft managed to become the de facto desktop platform by successfully leveraging the 3rd party development. If the kids from Facebook can pull off a similar coup, they will go from a destination with tens of millions of users, to one with hundreds of millions of users. Think that’s big? You ain’t seen nothing yet. A couple more well-placed chess moves will position Facebook to compete with the GYM (Google, Yahoo, MSFT) crowd.
What is the next big move? A public offering. They are reportedly in the black. Microsoft has reportedly offered them a rather sizable guarantee (hundreds of millions) in exchange for the right to monetize their search. The fact that they are buying up all the property along University Ave (where their HQ is in Palo Alto), is a firm indicator that they have something far more interesting up their sleeves than a fat acquisition. My prediction is that they will file their S1 by mid-next year. With the capital garnered from an IPO, they will be free to acquire services in core areas (search, commerce, etc), continuing their platform push and giving the digital media world yet another new-comer to worry about.
So let’s assume that this happens. Facebook goes public. How will this impact venture investment in the Web 2.0 space? This would be the first real public liquidity event in a space characterized by acquisition-centric exits (Flickr, YouTube, etc). Will this be the proverbial spark to light the real boom? Will this be a catalyst the likes of the Netscape public offering during Web 1.0? Is Facebook the next Google? I don’t really know. But it sure is fun to think about.
Anyway congrats to Dave Morin and team for pulling it off. See you guys on the flip-side.
Technorati tags: 
facebook, 
platform, 
widget
Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that Typepad has released a new offering - Typepad Pages. According to Typepad:
typepad, 
aggregator, 
web 2.0
video
thelandlord
willferrell
youtube
Hooray! Clearspring just served 3B widgets. Not bad for a couple months, eh? :)
Check out our handy-dandy counter located on the upper right hand corner of clearspring.com to take a look. I can't wait to see what happens when we release our open community platform. Sign-up here to get on the preview list. We are releasing the next wave of accounts now.
Congrats to the entire team!
technorati tags: 
widgets, 
syndication
