On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 10:14 PM, Reinier Zwitserloot <[email protected]>wrote:
> The key screwup in this missive, at least to my outsider eyes, is the > insinuation that facebook is succesful _because_ of the APIs. Anyone with > even a passing memory of facebook's rise knows those APIs didn't exist until > many years after facebook was gigantinormous. Specifically, this sentence: > > *But that's not why they are successful. Facebook is successful because > they built an entire constellation of products by allowing other people to > do the work.* > *Prima facie*, this is entirely correct, but maybe not like Steve meant it: Facebook did become what they are by letting other people do the work, but until not long ago, that work was purely human content and not driven by API's (because these API's didn't exist). Facebook has completely turned around and not only was the first version of their API's fairly exhaustive, their latest foray into this domain (called "Open Graph") is extraordinarily deep and promising. It's surprising that not more noise has been made about it because I think it's going to take social to a level that we haven't seen so far, maybe even to the point of smothering it completely, because more and more gestures are going to be generated by code and no longer by humans, which has been Facebook's value so far. -- Cédric -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
