JG etc.

I’ve been beating the Facebook Connect drum since it was announced. I even had the opportunity to speak my thoughts on it a bit at the Social Ad Summit on the Alternative Social Advertising Models panel and last week at our CM Summit around Social Media Optimization. Facebook or any social network only gets really interesting when it is open, searchable, and extensible.

Giving that intro, it was awesome for me when I saw Nick O’Neil writing about Scott Rafer’s presentation in Berlin around the Facebook Platform.

In the presentation Scott talks about the death of the Facebook Platform and the “intial” opportunity of Facebook Connect as the place where developers should be focusing their time. I say “intial” because I think Scott is concerned about Facebook having and using the same sort of power over Connect, as they have over their developer platform. A fair assesment, but this time the rules are different given the tradeoff for Facebook with Connect. Now, Facebook has the opportunity to “spread” its code base outside of their network and they also have competition, Google’s OpenSocial/FriendConnect. In my opinion, both of these companies are competing for the Social answer in advertising to what was Google AdSense for Publishers. The winner of this battle should reap the rewards of billions of dollars spent against Social Advertising in the coming years.

The general lesson to think about with the recent platform bust on Facebook is for all developers to not forget about the real opportunity, distribution platform, code base, and community. That is the overall openness of the web. Swallowing the Facebook Juice doesn’t prepare you for the larger offering of all the services of the web. Facebook Connect and Google OpenSocial/FriendConnect offer a way to “connect” the ecosystem of their social graphs while also maintaining your presence in your own ecosystem and code base. Both of these brands get the fundamental long term importance of being open and it Scott’s important message to developers to follow the lead of the big boys.