F8 Recap: Facebook Is Building The Social Web

Posted by Anne Herngaard Apr 21st, 2010

I just watched a live stream from F8, which is a Facebook developers conference held in San Francisco.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, and his crew enrolled some of the coming features on the Facebook platform. A lot of it is pretty technical in a nerdy way, but on the other hand it also influences how Facebook looks like for the common user as well as how Facebook will be incorporated on the web in the future.

With the new development, Facebook is really taking a step further and starting to build a social web. Zuckerberg presented the idea of an open graph meaning that networks such as Facebook, Yelp, Pandora etc. will no longer be separate closed graphs but all be connected into one open graph that makes the web more social. As Zuckerberg expressed it, the open graph means that people can have “instantly social and personalized experiences on the web”.

This puts people at the centre, so that the connections you make with friends, events, brands and things no longer just occur inside the Facebook platform, but also other places on the web. Thereby all the activities you do on the web can become part of your online Facebook identity.

Three core technologies was introduced to make this happen:

1. OPEN GRAPH: Connecting websites with Facebook so that you can connect content outside of Facebook with your personal profile. This will instantly be added to your news feed and your Likes and Interests will be build from the activities you do around the web.

2. SOCIAL PLUGINS: Consists of easy-to-use widgets to incorporate on your website with a simple code to provide the user with a more personal experience. The new plugins include ‘Like’ buttons, activity stream plugins that transfers your news stream, a Recommendations plugin, a ‘Sign In’ plugin, and a Social Bar that will appear as a dock at the bottom of your site. This way you have socially enabled you site with some simple html.

3. GRAPH API: A more open platform for developers to work with, so that Facebook will be easier to build around. This will entail new tools and services to incorporate on your own website. For instance developers can search on updates on public Facebook pages and develop services that may tell what people are saying about your brand.

A lot of people have expected Facebook to have a location-based tool up their sleeve, but none of that was on the agenda of this F8.

Facebook is still growing by the minute and now has 400 million people. So from a business point of view, most of your users are probably already using Facebook. As of now, Facebook is already working with several websites where the open graph is made a reality. Check out for instance IMDB, Levi’s or Microsoft’s new docs.com and have an instantly social experience