Facebook to Take More Aggressive Approach with Outside Applications

By Susan J. Campbell

TMCnet Contributing Editor

 

The success of Facebook (News - Alert) is well-known throughout the corporate and consumer communities. Now Facebook is introducing new tools that are expected to help the software applications that drive the site’s popularity. The company is also promising to step-up its efforts to weed out programs that violate its rules for protecting users’ privacy.

Michael Liedtke of the Associated Press reported early this morning that Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, outlined the steps in a programmers’ conference that highlight the growing influence of the popular website.

Zuckerberg spoke to a crowd of roughly 1,500 programmers as he discussed how he plans to make it easer for people to share information and entertainment no matter where they happen to be going on the Web. Much of his plan includes programmers who are not employed by Facebook.



In the 14 months since the company opened its site to outside developers, Facebook has spurred more than 30,000 applications that have been designed to run on the site. The more successful of the bunch have been embraced by users, turning the startups that developed them into viable companies.

In his quest to broaden the appeal of Facebook’s outside applications, Zuckerberg is giving programmers access to Facebook’s tools for translating into 20 different languages. The company is also seeking to make it easier for users to transplant their personal profiles and favorite applications to other sites.

Beyond the growing outside applications, Facebook’s users have exploded from 24 million in May 2007 to roughly 90 million today. This rapid growth has Facebook promptly on the heels of MySpace (News - Alert) and helped the company to secure a $240 million investment from Microsoft.  

In May, Facebook announced the “Connect” initiative, which moved a step closer to success with the opening of a “sandbox” for programmers to begin making their applications more portable. Connect has already received registrations from sites such as Digg, Citysearch and Movable Type. This feature is expected to debut this fall.

In addition to the benefits, the presence of outside applications has had its headaches, including security holes. Facebook has already removed roughly 1,000 abusive applications in the last 14 months and plans to be more aggressive in the future.

Facebook also plans to openly endorse those applications that the company considers to be “great”. Those that will get this rating will be considered more appealing to the site’s users. Such evaluations can either greatly help or hurt particular applications, but the increased pressure is sure to only benefit both Facebook and its users.