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All your widgets are belong to Facebook

Categories: Facebook Strategy, Security, Social Networking, Web Theory, Widget StrategyPosted on July 18th, 2007

Facebook = Blackhole, Whirlpool, Vortex.

Facebook is a closed garden with one way doors. Data in, but no data out. With so many companies, startups, ecommerce companies building widgets for this platform did anyone stop to consider that they’re not letting data flow out? Matt Dickman agrees, watch his video. Here’s what we should be concerned about:

1) For example, my non-Facebook friends can’t see what I’m doing, and I’m a public guy. If I link to Facebook, you have to register and sign up, brilliant web acquisition for Facebook.

2) But after I’ve setup my profile, and I would like it to be an open platform, I should have the ability to make my profile public and let folks see the elements I want.

3) What about my network? data? Profile? I want to export those. (Same thing to LinkedIn). The rolodex of today has an important field “friends”. I want to be able to export my network other systems and applications. What say you Marc Canter? Here’s a softball.

4) Last gripe? As far as I know Facebook doesn’t even have RSS

Opportunity for Facebook
Facebook (and whichever network follows suit) has a huge opportunity to not just be an application platform, but to be a true identity system for the entire network. This is why I think that Facebook could kill Open ID. So before we start jumping up and down, giving Facebook all of our data, and building our company widgets in Facebook should we first think about if this is a black hole?

Related reads

  • Facebook Predictions
  • LinkedIn’s Web Strategy, irrelevant?

    • Update: Jason Fields send me this link to ProfileLinker, it says it offers a portable social network address book.

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    This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 at 8:10 am and is filed under Facebook Strategy, Security, Social Networking, Web Theory, Widget Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

    37 Responses to “All your widgets are belong to Facebook”

    1. facebook is growing fast, in general the future of communication is in control of the social mobile networks. Their growing past each one attaacts a different audience, peekamo hit their audience on a more persoanl level through text, facebook is hitting everyone through pics, groups. Networking is now a business itself.



      2. Posted by kory on July 18th, 2007 at 10:07 am

    2. [...] been lots of blog posts recently about Facebook’s “walled garden” model (this is the most recent one I’ve read, and this one’s probably the most [...]



      3. Posted by The Nested Float » My Facebook Policy on July 18th, 2007 at 10:11 am

    3. Interesting piece. I don’t worry too much about the issues you raised - maybe I should. I just think that Facebook provides a nice service and thats why I use it. I have my blog so the general public can always view that.



      4. Posted by Shannon on July 18th, 2007 at 10:19 am

    4. Jeremiah,

      Here is my take on this issue. I wrote this post one month back and got some favorable response

      A decentralized social networking platform



      5. Posted by Krish on July 18th, 2007 at 10:32 am

    5. Shannon

      It may not seem like a big deal now, chances are, you’re not fully invested with all the time you’ve done to build your network.



      6. Posted by Jeremiah Owyang on July 18th, 2007 at 11:04 am

    6. This is actually a tough issue because I believe one of the most appealing things about Facebook is that it’s closed off.

      Communication is done with the understanding that the entire world is not going to see it.

      Furthermore, profiles contain personal information. Many people are not willing to share this with the entire world.



      7. Posted by Chris Rossini on July 18th, 2007 at 11:16 am

    7. [...] like Facebook, make apps to fix it. I liked the premise. Jeremiah Owyang points out that Facebook holds onto your data and won’t let go. He’s right. And that’s NOT very Web 2.0, is [...]



      8. Posted by If I Owned Facebook : [chrisbrogan.com] on July 18th, 2007 at 11:47 am

    8. I agree and disagree with this post.

      There’s no RSS feed for Facebook. I think it sucks. You can’t view profiles unless you have an account. There’s a lot of things you can’t see if you are not logged in on Facebook. But as one of your readers pointed out, some people prefer it that way.

      But Facebook apps allow you to distribute content from within Facebook. Now I don’t have to go to Twitter anymore to update my status. I can also update Jaiku from Twitter. And now I can even publish my Wordpress blog posts from Facebook. I see Facebook as a control panel for all my social networking applications. Sure I still have to update each app individually but it saves me from having to go to several other sites, each with a separate login. In that sense I guess I can also say that Facebook is like my single sign on social networking solution. (I posted about this a while back, but maybe it was over-reaching when I said Facebook apps make it a little easier to be ubiquitous in social networks: http://lisaamorao.wordpress.com/2007/06/25/facebook-apps/).



      9. Posted by Lisa on July 18th, 2007 at 12:02 pm

    9. As you know, I’ve made my feelings known about Facebook previously - http://blog.neilcford.com

      I’ve recently reactivated my account but only so I can keep up with what’s going on inside the walls.

      - Neil.



      10. Posted by Neil Ford on July 18th, 2007 at 12:29 pm

    10. Lisa

      What if we could have the OPTION of making our Facebook profile public?



      11. Posted by Jeremiah Owyang on July 18th, 2007 at 12:36 pm

    11. [...] such a hypocrite huh? ‘cuz in my last post I was ranting about Facebook, but I know it’s not going away, it’s going to [...]



      12. Posted by Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Join the Web Strategy Community, and yes I’m a hypocrite on July 18th, 2007 at 1:17 pm

    12. [...] Jeremiah Owyang, among others, are saying similar things (Dan, IMHO, is doing the more thorough job I’ve read recently): Facebook is a closed garden with one way doors. Data in, but no data out. With so many companies, startups, ecommerce companies building widgets for this platform did anyone stop to consider that they’re not letting data flow out? Matt Dickensen agrees, watch his video. Here’s what we should be concerned about…. Jeremiah Owyang–All your widgets are belong to Facebook [...]



      13. Posted by All you are belong to Facebook | A View from the Isle on July 18th, 2007 at 4:07 pm

    13. Facebook and the giant sucking sound of all your content coming in… and never leaving… forever… (and Facebook can do whatever it wants with it!)…

      Three vignettes to set the stage for the entry. First, Chris Broganrealizes that Facebook is a walled garden through his Twitter stream: Facebook messages doesn’t have FORWARD??? WTF??? You can’t be an email product and not have the BASICS. 09:59…



      14. Posted by Disruptive Conversations on July 18th, 2007 at 5:31 pm

    14. I think a really big opportunity for facebook is to create a MySpace widget. As odd as it sounds, it wont hurt facebook. It would be cool if I could log into facebook and see if I have any comments on my myspace! Although, it may not benefit MySpace all that much, unless they do something similar. Why should they fight together, instead Facebook should leverage the MySpace population for their benefit!



      15. Posted by christopher salazar on July 18th, 2007 at 6:28 pm

    15. [...] See also: Jeremiah Owyang– All your widgets belong to Facebook [...]



      16. Posted by » Dealing with Facebook time | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com on July 18th, 2007 at 10:34 pm

    16. [...] Jeremiah Owyang wrote this: [...]



      17. Posted by Who Are You, Digitally Speaking? at A Media Circus on July 19th, 2007 at 5:19 am

    17. Tantek twittered me and said that microformats could also be a solution



      18. Posted by Jeremiah Owyang on July 19th, 2007 at 6:29 am

    18. So you’re at least in their neighborhood, Jeremiah. Any friends over there you can ping and get some answer to the crowd of angry nerds brandishing iPhones at the base of the Facebook castle?

      –Chris…



      19. Posted by Chris Brogan... on July 19th, 2007 at 6:48 am

    19. Part of being a friendly web site these days is being transparent and not locking users into your service. Being able to export your data is one good way of moving towards that. It would be great to see Facebook do that instead of maintaining such exclusivity.



      20. Posted by Peter C on July 19th, 2007 at 8:19 am

    20. [...] So yeah. While Facebook might seem like a closed network or a “walled garden” as Jeremiah would put it, you can also distribute information from there via Facebook apps.What else can you do with [...]



      21. Posted by Is there anything you can’t do on Facebook? « Just Another Digerati Wannabe on July 19th, 2007 at 1:13 pm

    21. [...] Jeremiah Owyang is sitting here with me and he’s the one who said it’s a black hole after seeing how Facebook is becoming the new portal for all information you post around the Web. He wrote a post titled “all your widgets are belong to Facebook.” [...]



      22. Posted by Facebook: the new data black hole « Scobleizer on July 19th, 2007 at 4:27 pm

    22. The public profile is here, and that’s what any logged out user will see
      http://www.facebook.com/p/Jeremiah_Owyang/503291522
      The badge is configurable here
      http://www.facebook.com/badges.php
      and can be added to pretty much any site out there



      23. Posted by Alex Moskalyuk on July 19th, 2007 at 5:05 pm

    23. They do have feeds: http://www.facebook.com/feeds/faq.php

      However, it appears that each feed is tailored to the individual friend (inside of FB) that wants to monitor your activity. An interesting approach.



      24. Posted by Mark Collier on July 19th, 2007 at 8:25 pm

    24. good food for thought jeremiah, altho i still think a plentiful walled garden with great app infrastructure might be a more interesting place to hang out than a very wide open potato field with just a few scraggly potatoes ;)

      my take on Facebook = Microsoft Visual Basic is here:
      http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2007/07/kottke-is-wrong.html

      - dmc



      25. Posted by dave mcclure on July 19th, 2007 at 11:17 pm

    25. [...] you are late on the meme. Read Kottke’s post - he did a better job. Jeremiah: The fb profile data is available through the API - write a friggin app and export your profile [...]



      26. Posted by Facebook: After the hype comes the bashing « D-Lister on July 20th, 2007 at 2:26 am

    26. [...] both Robert Scoble and Jeremiah Owyang are concerned that Facebook is a black hole of data - it all goes in, but doesn’t come out. [...]



      27. Posted by Facebook Considering an Offline Version? | Marketing Pilgrim on July 20th, 2007 at 6:11 am

    27. [...] Robert Scoble and Jeremiah Owyang are making this claim. I agree that Facebook doesn’t let data out, but is that a bad thing? [...]



      28. Posted by Elroy Jetson » Facebook: a Data Black Hole? on July 20th, 2007 at 6:31 am

    28. [...] all your data can show up on Facebook. You can have your blog & Flickr photos and you can widgetize to death. What started as fun & entertainment only now is getting an increasingly meaningful [...]



      29. Posted by Facebook’s Secret Plan « HighContrast on July 20th, 2007 at 9:47 am

    29. I almost investigated the Facebook feed page and then I saw how long it was and decided it wasn’t worth it. On Facebook’s end though it’s pretty smart. Why integrate with the competition if they can make the competition integrate with them?



      30. Posted by Marco Hansell on July 20th, 2007 at 9:37 pm

    30. Facebook News and (my) Views…

      Let’s start with some Essential Facebook Readings of the day: The Facebook Juggernaut…bitch! Where are Facebook’s Early Adopters Going? Hmmm, Facebook: a new kind of press release All your widgets are belong to Facebook Why We’re Like a Million Mo…



      31. Posted by A Blog Around The Clock on July 22nd, 2007 at 12:20 am

    31. [...] Web Strategy by Jeremiah » All your widgets are belong to Facebook [...]



      32. Posted by Jeremiah Owyang | “All your widgets are belong to Facebook” « The Bankwatch on July 22nd, 2007 at 8:23 pm

    32. [...] when he described Facebook as a more updated version of the AOL walled garden and others such as Jeremiah Owyang and Robert Scoble calling it a black hole because all your data goes in but there’s no RSS [...]



      33. Posted by Closed Social Networks as a Guilded Cage — everwas on August 6th, 2007 at 7:54 am

    33. Not so closed after all:

      http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/14/facebook-opens-up-their-data-feeds/



      34. Posted by Jim on August 14th, 2007 at 12:08 pm

    34. Building your own Social Network…

      Why would anyone do this, I hear you ask? Well, take one look at the IP rules in Facebook, not to mention its “black hole” messaging properties and you begin to see why.

      There are two useful articles on TechCrunch on the various options available …



      35. Posted by broadstuff on August 15th, 2007 at 4:04 am

    35. [...] Web Strategy by Jeremiah » All your widgets are belong to Facebook [...]



      36. Posted by Ecommerce Lounge - Todays top blog posts on Internet Marketing - Powered by SocialRank on August 16th, 2007 at 12:32 am

    36. like myspace has an sms add on. facebook should have such a thing. i use peekamo for contacting peps on the go. if anyone has heard of it,



      37. Posted by kiran on September 21st, 2007 at 10:56 am

    37. [...] Are Social Networks Just a Feature? - GigOm The Chess game of social networking - Marc Canter All your widgets are belong to Facebook - Jeremiah Owyang Video: Social Networking in Plain English - Common Craft Facebook vs. AOL, redux - [...]



      38. Posted by Online Community Ideas - best of 2007 « Bill Johnston: Online Community Strategy on December 18th, 2007 at 11:20 pm

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