The Social Network

Since I write a blog related to Facebook, I’m apparently legally obligated to weigh in on the movie The Social Network, which if you’ve been living under a rock is the movie about the beginnings of Facebook. I didn’t have a real desire to see this, but I did attend DemoCamp 27 here in Toronto where it was shown after the main festivities, so I stayed and watched. Here’s what I took away:

• It’s a pretty good movie – Unfortunately, all of the hype and early reviews surrounding the movie screamed EPIC (think Casablanca, The Godfather, Pulp Fiction – movies that make you say ‘WOW’). It isn’t. It’s a  pretty good movie, well acted, good casting choices. That’s it.
• Is it really bad for Zuckerberg and/or Facebook? – A lot’s been written about Zuckerberg’s posturing about never wanting to see the movie, etc. C’mon, how long can you REALLY stay away from a movie that’s been written about you?? Apparently, for Mr. Zuckerberg et. al. the answer was 0 days as Facebook rented out an entire theater on the day of release, and Mark even showed up. My feeling is that even for a “hostile portrayel”, Zuckerberg doesn’t really look that bad in the movie. Maybe a bit abrasive, but loads of good qualities too. I don’t think it’s bad for him/them at all.
• Accurately portrays the real value of an idea - which is exactly $0.00. When Zuckerberg explains to the Winklevii that the only thing of value is the execution of the idea and not the idea itself, a whole lot of entrepreneurs around the world smiled and said “Someone in Hollywood gets it”.
• What added value did Eduardo Saverin bring to the table? – Much of the movie was from his point of view, or at least he was set up as the character you were supposed to have empathy towards. I spent the movie continuously asking the question “What did he really do of any real value??”. He wrote a check for $1k? C’mon, Zuckerberg in his Phillips Exeter Academy t-shirt and entrance into frickin’ Harvard could have found that money in lots of other places. In the end, it’s all about execution which was really about Mark. Eduardo – what exactly did you do? You WERE there in the beginning, took the risks, and should be rewarded in a grand manner. But don’t delude yourself and get greedy.
• What’s up with the Winklevii? - Okay, I know it’s a true story and all (despite the fiction), but are these people that bumblingly entitled? Really? Were they just there for comic relief? If someone should be embarrassed by this movie, look here.
• The big bad VC - Here’s a part that I thought was really unrealistic. When the big investment comes in and the corporate pie gets redistributed, the VC guy explains to Eduardo why Mark is being diluted, but he will end up with a bigger share. Given what was happening at that point and who was driving the growth/value (ummm, Mark + Sean) Eduardo should have run for the hills because something was obviously up. And, it was.
• Johns Hopkins! - I was probably the only one in the theater who appreciated this, but those exterior shots of “Harvard” were really JHU. Appropriate for those of us who think of Harvard as the “Hopkins of the Northeast”. When Mark comes out of Shaffer Hall and the camera pans left, I’m thinking “Lower Quad”!
• The motivations of geek entrepreneurs are sometimes deep-seated - The Erica character seemed so fictional and forced that I thought the beginning of the movie was kind of weak. But then, the last scene in the movie was the strongest. Not when Mark’s sitting alone in the boardroom trying to friend her. It’s the six seconds later when he refreshes his browser. I think what that scene says is very powerfully true. Most people look at people who start tech companies and think that the motivations are pretty obvious. Hollywood got this one right on. Again!

So what did you think of the movie? Leave a comment.

Facebook Terms of Use: Take them seriously!

Kara Swisher over at All Things Digital has some exclusive insights into the Ping / Facebook controversy. For those of you who don’t know, Apple recently announced Ping, a service that it’s positioning as a social network for music lovers (like what we need is ANOTHER social network).

Now social networks are pretty worthless until lots of people are members, so it’s imperitive to make it as simple as possible for new members to recruit their friends and make them members too. Historically, this has been done by importing email address books, but now there’s a new way to find people’s friends: Facebook. Facebook even gives developers an API so that applications can programmatically get your list of friends – perfect for a service like Ping to ramp up its member numbers.

And alas, that’s what Mr. Jobs et. al. tried to do. This was quickly countered by Facebook playing their Terms of Use trump card to cut off API access to Ping and Apple. They rightfully claimed that a service like Ping would cause a huge load on their server infrastructure, and without a special agreement (as the TOU dictates) they had the right to cut Apple off.

So if you’ve been unsure as to whether Facebook really enforces their rules, the answer is yes they do, and they will act quickly. If your application puts undue strain on the Facebook servers you DO need to work with them to ensure that everyone remains happy. If you’re not sure about how much server interaction your application has with Facebook, you can test your Facebook application with a tool like FriendRunner.

Big changes coming to Facebook Platform

Today’s Developer Roadmap post by Facebook has outlined some big changes coming down the pike for Facebook Platform. Here are the big 3 changes (well, as far as we see them):

No new FBML apps

Facebook will no longer accept new FBML Canvas applications by the end of the year. These are the types of applications that launched the Facebook Platform way back in 2007 (the same year that saw the iPhone and The Simpsons Movie). FBML apps have a lot going against them, most importantly is the fact that there’s really no good reason to write them anymore. It used to be that developers who wanted to write Canvas applications had to choose between FBML and the simpler but not-as-powerful IFrame method.

But IFrame has now caught up and surpassed FBML in terms of power, so there’s really no reason why a developer building a new application in 2010 should even consider using FBML. There’s also another issue at stake here. FBML Canvas apps require all of the data traveling between a user’s browser and the application itself to be routed through the Facebook servers. This is a legacy design from 2007 that was done to give Facebook more control, and allow for user authentication, but it’s costing Facebook a lot of money to run these servers that do very little but act as proxies.

Since new FBML Canvas apps no longer provide any real value, and they cost Facebook a lot of money to support, Mr. Zuckerberg et. al. would like to just sweep them under the carpet. Looks like that’s what they’re doing.

Parts of the Classic REST API are being deprecated

Whatever we said about FBML apps is doubly true of the Facebook “Classic” REST API. Born in 2007, it now looks like patches upon patches with no coherent vision. It’s been so far surpassed by the Graph API that Facebook never even bothered to mention any non-Graph API support for their very important location updates yesterday. It’s been clear for a long time that this API needs to be put to rest, and deprecating parts of it is definitely the beginning. We can all say Amen.

OAuth 2.0 will be required for authentication

Another nail in the Classic REST API coffin. OAuth 2.0 goes hand in hand with the Graph API that Facebook would like to push everyone towards. Enough said.

Facebook has historically moved very quickly, which contributes to a good part of their success. Moving quickly means getting things out to customers quickly rather than perfectly and dealing with the consequences later. Today’s Developer Roadmapupdate is a good example of how to deal with those consequences, and will ensure that Facebook developers will continue to have loads of things to do as Facebook continues to innovate.

Location, Location, Location ummm…. Places, Places, Places

Facebook has just announced their long awaited location-based feature that they’ve called Places. Places is currently available from the Facebook iPhone app, or from http://touch.facebook.com/ if your mobile device supports HTML 5 and geolocation.

Places seems to be all about “Checking In” to places, a’ la Foursquare, although Places doesn’t seem to have the concept of “mayor” yet. In fact, it really isn’t so clear what the relationship of Places to similar services like Foursquare or Gowalla even is. On the surface, they’d seem to be rivals, but representatives from these other companies were on stage at the launch event. Everyone seems to be scratching their heads and asking “Why?”. Inside Facebook seems to think that everyone will play well together. On the other hand, All Facebook seems to think that Facebook is simply playing the proverbial cat that toys with the mouse before eating it. We seem to agree – Facebook is several orders of magnitude bigger than Foursquare and really doesn’t need them. Bye…

In other relationship news, Facebook has chosen to use Bing Maps instead of Google maps for well, mapping. Not a big surprise here, Facebook’s relationship with Microsoft > Facebook’s relationship with Google.

Facebook also seems to be making a big deal about privacy for Places. As if we’re all worried about Facebook’s use of our private data … There are also some safeguards to protect you from your friends playing pranks by checking you into the local strip joint, the free clinic, or Country Kitchen Buffet.

The name that Facebook chose for this service is also very interesting. Places vs. Locations. When you think about it, it makes sense based on the service that Facebook is providing. This service uses places (Katz’s Deli) as their atomically addressable entity as opposed to location (40° 43′ 20.33″ N, 73° 59′ 14.41″ W) which is far more precise, but amorphous. Facebook is clearly shooting at getting people to check in and tag real places to help fill up their Open Graph. This choice also seems to encourage developers to build location-aware applications around places and friends (since that’s what Facebook is all about) rather than real-time precise locations that one would need for say a citywide gaming application.

Which brings us to developers, APIs, and testing, the Raison d’être of this blog. Facebook is exposing user’s checkins to applications that use the Graph API (sorry Classic RESTful API developers – time to change). Currently, the only thing applications can get is checkin info using one of the following APIs:

GET https://graph.facebook.com/[checkin_id]

Gives information about an individual checkin

GET https://graph.facebook.com/[place/Page/user_id]/checkins

Gives a list of checkins that this entity has made. BTW, why can a place perform a checkin??

GET https://graph.facebook.com/search?type=checkin&access_token=ACCESS_TOKEN

Seaches for checkins

We’re told that an API to create checkin information from an application is on its way, or actually is in Double Secret Beta. Look for it soon, and then things will begin to get really interesting.