Monday, April 27, 2009
Facebook: Islands in the Stream [UPDATED]
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is going to turn the social network’s “stream” of user experiences and information into a revenue stream one way or another. And if that means allowing others to pan its waters for gold, then so be it.
And so, at an event in Palo Alto later today, Facebook will reportedly announce plans to open its stream to third-party developers, offering them the chance to build new services and applications outside the site that access the status updates, photos and videos uploaded by users.
Hard to believe, but social networking has eclipsed email in popularity. The latest Nielsen survey found that 66.8 percent of the global online population spends time at “Member Communities”–a category that includes both blogs and social networks. That makes social networking about two percent more popular than email.
