(Writing in a car on the way back from Vermont)
Inspired by a few back and forth twitter conversations, I am more convinced than ever that the future of Facebook is an open networked ecosystem to manage your life online. Sharing on Facebook is already becoming more of a broadcast. The broadcast nature of the platform will lead to more connections being made and the need to continue to open up certain channels to create even more connections and allow Facebook more revenue opportunities.
What leads to the this open ecosystem? Developers creating applications that break down the walls of friends and find more ways for people to connect. A good example is the early facebook application market. The rules of engagement have less to do with your friends and more to do with your associations. You broadcast your favorite football teams and share your favorite moments with non-friends on applications like Water-Cooler or Graffiti.
Other examples of how Facebook has evolved over time to be more of a broadcast platform than sharing among a small network.
- Opening up the network to the world that is outside of the people that have a college email.
- River of news updates to your network.
- Facebook Profile search in Google allows for anyone in the world to find your profile.
- Application market and connecting outside of your friend network
- Facebook Connect allows for your social ID to follow you around on the web. It still allows for this interaction to come back to your river of news, but it also tells the outside world that you have an online ID that can tell you more if you are interested in exploring.
