Two weeks ago Facebook announced that the company would no longer be just another social-networking site.  Facebook is now opening itself as a platform for any company, Internet service or software maker to build services for it’s members.  Facebook is taking the next step in social-networking, actually a giant leap ahead of it’s competitors with it’s new platform driving tons of innovative ideas and improving the quality of Facebook life.

The services being built are applications that anyone can build and upload; CEO Mark Zuckerberg told FORTUNE magazine, “We want to make Facebook into something of an operating system so that you can run full applications.”  At the release event the company called F8 (“fate”) Facebook announced that 65 companies had launched 85 new applications.  Companies on board include:  Amazon.com, Microsoft, Photobucket, Twitter.com, and a music discovery program called iLike.  Two weeks after the release of their platform, Facebook is up 1 million users from 24 million users to 25 million users; and applications like iLike which only had 3 million members on it’s website before it’s Facebook lunch now has almost 1 million users alone on Facebook and is growing at about 200,000 users per day.

The idea to spawn Facebook into a platform came to Zuckerberg in 2005 when Facebook launched their photo application.  Zuckerberg told FORTUNE magazine, that it lacked many features that other photo sites had but it almost immediately garnered the most traffic by far.  Members could quickly see when friends uploaded new photos and in turn viewed more of them. The next step was the “News Feed” feature where information about the activity of your friends is broadcast to your own Facebook home page.  This feature, which launched in September 2006 and gained major criticism by users, was necessary to open Facebook as a platform.  Now users can see which Friends are using what applications, and moreover use applications to form community a voice.  Facebook essentially hit the nail on the head with its strategy and is asking not what its community can do for Facebook, but what Facebook can do for its community.

So, what does this mean?  The release of Facebook as a platform has sent the social-networking world into a type of race – and Facebook is not just in the lead, but as MediaPost writer Joe Marchese  put it, “…Facebook has fired the starting gun…”  Just two weeks after the release, which wasn’t announced to Facebook users, there were already 300 applications created.  The viral power of a platform like Facebook is growing immensely.  Application partners like iLike did not do any explicit promotion or advertising of the new application; users tried it, liked it and because Facebook users can see what their friends and people they trust are doing, they try it out.

This seems like a no-brainer for marketers, especially interactive marketers, yet the response among those in the media is mixed.  FORTUNE magazine writer David Kirkpatrick points out that the Facebook platform represents a major shift in how the web works – with less effort than ever Facebook is eliminating labor in the creation of social applications. Ali Partovi, CEO of iLike told FORTUNE magazine, “Anybody who is currently building consumer facing websites should be thinking about building a Facebook application instead, Developers who don’t ask themselves that questions are like the people building multimedia CD-ROM software in 1996 who didn’t’ ask themselves if they should be building a website.”

While Partovi feels the adaptation of Facebook as a platform is extremely beneficial, some feel this attitude will not be easy for many marketers to adopt, and that Facebook’s huge viral power can even hurt some marketers.  Kirkpatrick also pointed out that significant damage could be done if someone builds tools that would allow Facebook users to become more efficient at communication amongst themselves about products and services they use making it easier to learn if friends have been wronged, such as an overcharge on a credit card.  However, it’s just as easy to find out if your friend loves their new shampoo.

Marchese thinks it will mean painful transitions for marketers and has made a strong statement: “As social media players shift strategies, the questions advertisers have to ask themselves include: What are we as advertisers doing to match the pace of change in social media? How can advertising support the open social media ecosystem? What value can our advertising creative and our brands’ social currency add to the social media ecosystem?”  He also addresses the advertising/marketing community with, “When was the last time you, like Facebook, asked your staff not what social media communities can do for your brand – but what your brand can do for social media.”

I feel what Facebook’s platform provides is extremely valuable.  Facebook strategy boss Matt Cohler told FORTUNE magazine, “…Users will be telling us more about themselves by using a richer site, and we can use that information to serve them a more relevant experience, both in advertising and other ways.”  This is a huge resource for any marketer.  Many companies can upload an application specifically created for their product and without any extra advertising or promotion garner immense buzz marketing.  The most positive thing right now, I believe is Facebook’s advertising guidelines for applications.  CEO Zuckerberg told FORTUNE magazine that Facebook will not limit the ways developers make money, “They can sell sponsorships, they can have ads, they can sell things, they can link off to another site – we are just agnostic.” 

-Amanda DeVincentis

Tags: facebook, social media, twitter, Ali Partovi, Fortune, Mark Zuckerberg, ilike, Photobucket, Microsoft, Marketing, Media, Joe Marchese, advertising