The Facebook Juggernaut…bitch!
Forget the privacy-infringing, faux-not-evil Google Beast. The real beast, growing rapidly and devouring everything in its path, is Facebook. Facebook huge right now. Super-huge. Almost Google-huge. CEO-bitch “CEO,bitch” Mark Zuckerberg is hailed as a modern-day DaVinci. Even old fogeys like Robert Scoble are transitioning to Facebook, because it’s as cool as iPhone. A cottage industry, complete with eager VCs has sprung up around Facebook Applications, and startups rise and fall on Facebook apps alone.
And now, Facebook is jumping into the acqusistions game, buying up a startup before it even launches and outbidding Google. When you outbid Google’s billion-dollar cash reserves, you ‘re not fooling around. You mean business.
So what’s Facebook’s strategy for world domination? The clues are becoming more and more apparent. The startup Facebook acquired, Parakey, is building a web operating system, similar to eyeOS. A Web OS lets you keep all of your files and applications online, accessible from any computer. This may not seem too useful at first- until you factor in the latest crop of smartphones. Smartphone like the N95 and dumbphones-pretending-to-be-smartphones like the iPhone are advancing the concept of full-featured web browsers on phones. A Web OS on a PC already running a full operating system may not be that appealing- a full OS running on a phone is infinitely more useful.
But I digress. The mobile angle is promising, but it is not the only prong in Facebook’s strategy. With the release of its Developer Platform, Facebook is moving ever closer to becoming much more than a social network, but also a true application platform, and thus, an ever more important destination. With this acqusition of a Web OS, I would not be suprised if, in a year or two, the primary way to use computers for many of us will be boooting up Windows, Linux or iPhone, opening up Facebook full screen, and launching text editors, IM programs and a secure web browser, all from within Facebook.
Just look at the evolution in what Facebook calls itself:
- Facebook in 2005 was “an online directory that connects people through social networks at schools”
- Facebook now is “a social utility that connects you with the people around you”
- Facebook in the future is likely to be more of “a social application platform”
Although future Facebook will certainly be the harbinger of a more exciting, Web-based future, it’s worth remembering that Facebook is, and most likely always will be, a walled garden. What happens in Facebook stays in Facebook, behind the login screen. Google and Yahoo at least try to be open with APIs. Facebook applications, unlike Google Maps mashups, live only inside Facebook, and play by Facebook’s rules. Facebook is already moving to replace email. Once the functions of the OS itself move into the Facebook castle, the Facebook juggernaut will have devoured every aspect of our digital lives. Will that make out digital lives better? Is the rise of Facebook a symbol of a new, elightened, and vastly superior web, or is it the end of humanity as we know it? I don’t know. But for better of for worse, the growth of the Facebook juggernaut is inevitable.
Full Disclosure: I have a Facebook account and use it daily, mostly to keep up with high school friends. I have no plans to abandon it.
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You can find more info on Blake Ross and Parakey at IEEE Spectrum in the article “The Firefox Kid” (http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/nov06/4696) from last November. Interestingly, Mark Zuckerberg of FaceBook is a good friend of Ross’s. Now, that’s social networking.
This is one of the most insightful analyses I’ve come across.
I worked with Joe Hewitt at iPhoneDevCamp on Tilt (actually I was mostly an observer while he did most of the work). Joe was absolutely ecstatic for what the iPhone meant for web development, and so my money would be on Parakey enabling lots of mobile app innovations as you say.
What’s funny is that I have that issue staring across from me every day at work on our magazine shelf. I only noticed it the day before the announcement
I totally agree. Facebook’s growth has been phenomenal.With an above 3% growth rate per week., it is truly slated to be the largest social networking site in a few years.It is truly addictive and transcends across all age groups. In fact, I was surprised that Facebook primarily meant for 18-24 year olds experiences the largest growth, in terms of users in the 35 category.
I wrote a post on the same here:
http://www.mosaic-service.com/blog/?cat=7
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at least its not myspace thats taking over… i cant stand that and all the spam that comes along with it
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very nice information.
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That’s great, thanks for the post.
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