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Internet Facebook Opens Its Doors to Third-party Companies
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - May 23, 2007 3:56 PM

19 comment(s) - last by Treckin.. on May 24 at 11:39 AM

Third party companies and developers will have access to Facebook's 23 million users

Tomorrow will mark a big day for social networking site Facebook as it opens up its doors to other companies and developers. Facebook competes with MySpace and has gained a tremendous amount of popularity over the last year, reaching over 23 million users and adding roughly 100,000 more on a daily basis.

With the amount of active users concentrated in one space, Facebook is quickly becoming a hot spot for third party companies wishing to reach more people. Facebook will now allow companies to provide products and services on special pages on the site. Within these pages, a company like Amazon.com for example can sell directly to users. Facebook users will be able to purchase services and products directly.

The move by Facebook will also give companies direct access to Facebook's massive user network and information. This is not to say that companies will have open access to user profiles, which for the most part remain private. For Facebook, the main draw will be to connect companies to people. It would be possible for users to join network pages setup by a third-party company.

Despite opening its doors wider, Facebook executives say that the company will not be sharing revenue with the third party companies. Facebook remains a privately owned operation but does have plans to do an IPO down the line. Facebook currently generates roughly $150 million in revenue per year through advertisements and items such as $1 gifts that are purchasable by users.

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Let the wave of corruption begin! (MySpace user-types)

By Imaginer on 5/23/2007 8:43:19 PM , Rating: 3

The good thing about Facebook in my opinion is that it is a MUCH cleaner interface, navigation, and layout of information compared to the crap that is MySpace. Not to mention that adding and soliciting yourself to others is a bit more closed compared to MySpace.

Not to mention, registration is restricted to only just college students (now high school) so it keeps the spam accounts down because there is a legitimate way to know who can and can't sign up.

I hope that Facebook does not succumb to MySpace retards that will inevitably flow in.

RE: Let the wave of corruption begin! (MySpace user-types)

By Lakku on 5/23/2007 9:13:27 PM , Rating: 3

No, facebook is open to anyone who wants to join. They still, however, keep you seperated by networks. Facebook opened up from being just college students to everyone shortly after, or at the same time as, they started allowing high school networks.

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RE: Let the wave of corruption begin! (MySpace user-types)

By Imaginer on 5/23/2007 9:46:34 PM , Rating: 2

Ah, I must have been under the proverbial internet rock. Just checked and yeah they apparantly are open to others besides colleges and high schools. But when registering anew, you are presented with the separation of groups.

But my stance on MySpace still holds!

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Wait... What?

By Polynikes on 5/23/2007 9:09:21 PM , Rating: 5

So, if I wanted to buy something from Amazon.com, why would I do it through facebook? I'd just go to amazon and buy it...

facebook is pretty cool

By otispunkmeyer on 5/24/2007 3:48:00 AM , Rating: 2

for a start theres hardly any emo teens, and they cant just see your profile and add you.

all the people i have found on it have been university friends or just old friends i had lost touch with.

theres no option for people to make hideous background and embed crap music videos

its all very mature and genuinely useful for getting in contact. its UI is pretty slick as well, myspace looks like the work of a 12 year old who just learnt HTML

my university even have a page and they let me know about upcoming events n such its all very well integrated.

hopefully this will not change.

Facebook Revolution

By innovatorview on 5/24/2007 6:27:30 AM , Rating: 2

I think that many people have not yet realized the full effect of Facebook openning up access to its network. This enables all sorts of unique services such as secure person-to-person lending on Facebook network and other transaction services. Facebook will become more of a user interface into all sorts of web services and that is very unique.

Facebook Advantage

By drinkmorejava on 5/24/2007 11:37:28 AM , Rating: 2

I think the one main advantage that Facebook holds over MySpace and similar sites is not necessarily the clean UI, but their ability to obtain, collate, and process information about individual users through their network scheme and the relatively large amount of pre-assigned profile attributes that users can choose to post. Without an organized structure for maintaining the characteristics of each user, it becomes very hard MySpace, Xanga, etc to produce large, accurate, and consistent banks of data for each user. Essentially, Facebook has the ability to characterize and demographically profile each user where everyone else mostly fails.

Government Run?

By GGA1759 on 5/23/07, Rating: -1

RE: Government Run?

By cochy on 5/23/2007 4:12:28 PM , Rating: 2

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RE: Government Run?

By arazok on 5/23/2007 4:45:40 PM , Rating: 5

I had some idiot at work trying to push that crap the other day. I'm sure there are a million variants to the story, but he was pushing the idea that the CIA invented Facebook as a way to trick the population into registering who they are, their friends are, and what things they do on a regular basis...blah blah blah.

9/11 happened and men did land on the moon. There are no grand conspiracies here - just a lot of idiots like you who couldn't spot a pile of BS if it jumped up and introduced itself.

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RE: Government Run?

By Treckin on 5/23/2007 5:38:36 PM , Rating: 4

I find it amusing that you would get so worked up by that.

I dont believe the CIA would need to start a massively popular networking site to farm that kind of data... There are specific sections of laws, referred to as 'black text' (in reference to the 1950's when they would literally black out sections) that allow the CIA and NSA to gather such intellegence. The NSA has the capability to just take the information they want, they dont need to specifically own the site.
One of the greatest misconceptions out there I believe is that the CIA and NSA are not allowed to gather information from US citizens on US soil...
Absolutely wrong. Specifically, they may gather said information so long as it does not leave the premises of the collection facility. This is basically where the pun on the NSA name - No Such Agency comes from. They were not even an acknowledged institution, neither confirm or deny, until 1984. The reason I'm sorta spieling about the NSA is because a) Its my major study, and b) The NSA has jurisdiction over all forms of electronic information, in this case, Facebook

However, I would not go taking your FaceBook account down over this. Because it is widely acknowledged that the public exposure or negative publicity that could result from an intelligence scandal involving info gathered in this mannor, the NSA is not searching your facebook account for pictures of your latest bong rip, or of you spray painting your school up. The kind of people that they physically use their information on are the ones that you never hear from again... I would not be surprised if there are a few in Gitmo...

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RE: Government Run?

By vitul on 5/23/2007 7:34:41 PM , Rating: 1

whats the point of facebook when myspace is a bigger site and everyone already has it. who cares who runs it and how its run.

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RE: Government Run?

By Thmstec on 5/23/2007 8:52:20 PM , Rating: 2

myspace is ANNOYING, not to mind slow. Its about competetion, lets not create a "microsoft" of social networking sites

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RE: Government Run?

By thebrown13 on 5/23/2007 9:11:29 PM , Rating: 1

I could use a quality social networking site, if that's what you mean by a "Microsoft" site.

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RE: Government Run?

By Lakku on 5/23/2007 9:20:52 PM , Rating: 2

It's not a misconception. The CIA is NOT allowed to conduct clandestine military operations on domestic soil, unless specifically mandated by the US president for each individual operation. Does that mean they don't? Probably not. But, that is why the FBI and Homeland security exist, who both have counter terroism units. Second, the NSA is NOT allowed to spy on US citizens on domestic soil. They are meant to have ears to the 'outside' world. They can, however, inspect going out of the country communications. Does that mean they don't spy on US citizens? Probably not. However, once again, that is why Homeland security and the FBI exist, for domestic counter terroism and law enforcement. If that is your major study, you need to study more, or you got your information from some conspiracy nut. Like I said, that doesn't mean they don't work domesticaly, however, they are officially not supposed to, there is no misconception about that.

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RE: Government Run?

By Lakku on 5/23/2007 9:25:32 PM , Rating: 2

I didn't mean clandestine military operations on that, I meant clandestine operations, sorry.

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RE: Government Run?

By Treckin on 5/23/2007 11:21:01 PM , Rating: 2

I don't know where your getting YOUR info. There is a directive, signed by president Johnson, that allows the NSA to collect whatever information they deem necessary. Under the UMBRA act (although that used to be the code name for the highest security rating, it no longer is, giving way to 0-0-4), the NSA is classified as NEED TO KNOW only, and thus their raw data is not inspectable by any member of the government, including senators and the supreme court. There is a clear distinction between RAW data and PROCESSED data. In their initial charter, the NSA was founded to only collect SIGINT (signal intelligence), while the CIA was charged with human operations and data analysis. The reason the CIA and the NSA butted heads for, oh, 40 years, was because of the directive signed by Johnson. Because the agency had the power to collect any SIGINT it wanted, it was also charged with protecting the rights of citizens. This was because the NSA developed DATA raking; an example of this would be the central telephone routing hub that went though Ft. Mead (the NSA headquarters). The CIA was furious that the NSA could pick and choose that data they forwarded to them. This was illustrated by the bombing of the USS liberty-

Duing the Israeli - Egyptian war, the USS liberty, actually an NSA SIGINT receiver ship, was bombed by the Israeli air force. The US government until 1997 held that it was a confirmed accident.
Aboard the ship, the technicians thermited and sink-bagged all of the code keys and reel-to-reels, to their data was lost. The reason the Israelis bombed the liberty was because the liberty had been recording the Israeli Military committing war crimes on civilians.
The example of the NSA->CIA DATA filtering comes here; although all data on board the Liberty (which managed to limp back to port in Italy), the NSA also had a C5 SigInt flying overhead. The recordings from the C5 were of Israeli pilots shouting to their radar towers "affirmative command, we will eliminate the American eavesdroppers" (not ver batem)
The NSA judged that this data was too sensitive to release to the CIA, as it could incite a war, or at least detrimentally harm US/Israeli relations. So in the vault it went. This information was leaked during the second Clinton administration. The Israelis to that point had refused to even apologize for the 134 sailors who were killed, or the loss of a U.S.S. Clinton demanded an a apology and restitution for the Liberty. The first he got, the second they refused.

I really hope you can get your head out of your ass, and try sticking to topics about which you know something. I think theres a World of Warcraft forum out there somewhere calling your name...

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RE: Government Run?

By EODetroit on 5/24/2007 10:17:59 AM , Rating: 2

A facinating story I didn't know before, but I fail to see what it has to do with the CIA supposedly having started Facebook (or not).

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RE: Government Run?

By Treckin on 5/24/2007 11:39:18 AM , Rating: 2

My point was originally that the CIA wouldn't be the organization that would start facebook, it would be the NSA, simply by jurisdiction. Further, I was saying that the NSA didnt need to own the damn website to rape all of their data. Owning it would put them in the public spotlight, or at least create a risk of exposure. They would be much more content to sit in Ft. Mead and quietly rake all of the data they wanted from their servers. Why would they need to start the company? the market took care of that for them.

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