Facebook unveils Platform for outside developers

A social-networking Web site Facebook.com on Thursday has opened its door for public, calling on thousands of technology companies and programmers to contribute features to its service. These outside companies would build the applications for the Facebook Web site, and will be able to generate revenue from those services by showing ads or selling goods and services within special pages in the site, the company said.

In a keynote at the company’s f8 event in San Francisco yesterday, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook Platform, inviting all developers to build the next-generation of applications with deep integration into Facebook, distribution across its “social graph” and an opportunity to build new businesses.

Facebook Platform, which debuted with 85 new features designed by other companies such as Amazon, Microsoft and The Washington Post at Facebook's invitation, is an unusual step taken by the company as an ambitious strategy for expansion.

By unveiling this unique, open-to-all portal the company is offering the opportunity for any company, Internet service, or software maker - anyone at all, to build services for its members. Facebook has so far recruited about 65 companies to create software for the Platform, which has already opened up to any company on Thursday night.

“Until now, social networks have been closed platforms. Today, we’re going to end that,” Zuckerberg told an audience of more than 750 developers and partners. “With this evolution of Facebook Platform, any developer worldwide can build full social applications on top of the social graph, inside of Facebook.”

The third-party contributors, who has so far helped Facebook developing the Platform, demonstrated their respective features at the Facebook event. Amazon.com Inc., an e-commerce powerhouse, showed off its application that will allow Facebook members to publish book reviews on their profile pages. The feature will come into effect later this week.

A company called Digg, which already allows people to share and rate favorite news stories online, now is offering a version of its service on Facebook that could allow it to accumulate users more quickly. Another company called iLike launched a service at F8 that allows members to connect at concerts. Non-Internet brands such as Red Bull are also coming forward to develop Facebook applications.

Facebook on Thursday also unveiled an example application, called Video, that allows for the simple sharing of personal videos between friends within Facebook, and the creation and sending of video messages directly to and from the Facebook Inbox, as well.

This new video application could compete with Internet search Google Inc.'s YouTube.

Founded by Zuckerberg and his Harvard buddy, Dustin Moskovitz in February 2004, the Palo Alto, California based, Facebook is the Internet’s second-largest social network, with 24 million members (less than half of whom are now in college), and adding about 150,000 each day.

Facebook was originally popular on college campuses, but last September the site opened up registration to non-college students. Since then it evolved into a major social networking destination to rival MySpace.com, owned by Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate News Corp.

In a keynote yesterday, the company's 23-year-old founder and chief executive, Zuckerberg said, "We're the sixth most trafficked site in the U.S. and we can't seem to get our act together."

"We recently passed eBay in traffic and we're working on passing Google, too," he added.