platformer

In case you still haven't heard enough about Facebook Platform, well, here you go. CNET News.com has compiled a gallery of the best Facebook Platform applications for procrastinating at the office--you know, if it's a slow day, or if your boss isn't looking. Trust us, a lot of "field work" went into testing these out and making sure that they're really, really good for wasting a workday. Tons of fun! Loads of counter-productivity for everyone!

For the procrastination gallery, click here.

And for more about the developer frenzy surrounding Facebook Platform, click here.… Read more

Developers interested in working with Facebook Platform, the new third-party widget initiative from the fast-growing social networking site, gathered in several locations on Wednesday evening to hold inaugural Developer Meetups. The New York get-together, hosted by local entrepreneur Amit Gupta, was attended by somewhere between 80 and 90 people--mostly either developers who wanted to learn how they can use Facebook's offerings, or start-up entrepreneurs who had caught the "every Web 2.0 company needs a Facebook Platform app" bug.

Attendees knew that the event would feature a videoconference with Facebook's director of platform, Dave Morin, who … Read more

SECOND UPDATE: Check the end of this post for some more information from Facebook and ViddYou.

I think most of the Web has reached the consensus that Facebook Platform, the social networking site's new initiative to open up its service to third-party companies' specially-designed applications, has been a resounding success. Anecdotally, I can say that "techy" people I know, who had originally dismissed Facebook as a glorified address book, are now starting to think that it has a whole lot more street cred. And I know some people who are more or less addicted to some of the new features (throw a sheep at me, will ya?)

But whispers have been spreading that perhaps Facebook--generally known for being methodical and well-organized, choosing to roll out features incrementally rather than going for huge revamps--might not have predicted just how popular the new Platform would be, and wasn't ready for the onslaught of bandwidth activity. Yesterday, there were some rumors going around that Facebook had had to sell a full 10 percent of its shares in order to purchase enough hardware to handle its rapid user increase. Looks like the original story was reported on the Web site of the U.K. newspaper The Times and was then pulled. (Conspiracy theorists may point out the fact that The Times is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which also owns Facebook's chief rival MySpace. Personally, I think it's more likely just a case of some reporting that turned out to be based on unsubstantiated rumor.)

If true, basically, it would indicate that Facebook, often singled out as a red-hot potential acquisition target, wasn't as financially stable as the tech community would have thought. Tough to believe, since we've had every indication that the company is extremely well-funded, financially efficient, and has pulled in adequate advertising revenues. So, like most others following the social networking scene, I dismissed it as speculative gossip.

And I still think the original claims in The Times were untrue, but some more concrete signs have indeed indicated that Facebook wasn't fully ready for the whirlwind success of the Platform. While logged onto Facebook this morning in an attempt to engage in a SuperPoke war with one of my friends, I saw this:… Read more

BOSTON--eBay on Monday opened the doors to its developer conference, where the commerce giant announced a batch of new application-programming interfaces, or APIs, and showed off its new desktop application.

The company announced better-performing shopping Web services, an API for bidding on goods and a way to notify users about auctions through automated alerts.

In addition, the company is expected to demonstrate the desktop application for accessing eBay services, code-named the San Dimas project, during the morning keynote speech.

The software was built using Adobe's AIR platform which enables people to write applications with Web-based toolkits that operate like … Read more

eBay gets the highest overall marks from developers as a Web platform provider followed by Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN, according to a new survey by Evans Data.

Amazon.com, which is trying to develop a large Web services business, scored near the bottom while Google gets good marks for its tools--even better than Microsoft.

Although simmering for a while, the idea of building Web applications on top of large-scale commercial sites like Yahoo or Google has picked up steam significantly in the past two years.

This is an important transition in the application development area--and the Internet overall. As … Read more

One of the newest and most popular Facebook apps making the rounds is Graffiti Wall, an application that does exactly what it says: it lets your friends tag your profile. Facebook has had its wall feature for years, allowing users to write personalized messages to one another for everyone to see. With Graffiti Wall, instead of words, you can break out your art skills and go to town on a 600-pixel wide canvas.

Once you've created your masterpiece, it will show up on your friends' Graffiti Wall, assuming they have it installed. If not, others will still be able … Read more

Today, Facebook (more coverage) announced a new direction: it's opening up. Not only is it making its community of users available to developers who want to create widgets for Facebook, but it's also launching a platform, Facebook/f8, through which entire community sites can be delivered.

Yesterday, in advance of the announcement, I talked with two CEOs who are now Facebook partners.

The more ambitious plan comes from Ali Partovi of iLike, a music community and recommendation system that is being rebuilt as a service that lives completely inside Facebook. As Partovi told me, the opportunity to do … Read more

Microsoft is rescheduling its Professional Developers Conference originally set to be held in October this year in Los Angeles.

The PDC is the company's premier developer event where it outlines major platform strategies. At the 2003 event, top executives, including Bill Gates, outlined the core components of Longhorn, which became Windows Vista.

Because Microsoft has released or is close to releasing many of its developer platform products, it has chosen to reschedule this year's PDC, according to a notice on its MSDN developer network Web site.

"By this fall, however, upcoming platform technologies including Windows Server 2008, … Read more

Facebook is making a major platform announcement today at 3:00 PM PDT. We'll be at the press conference and, unless there's a clamp on video rights during the event, we'll be streaming it live, using Veodia (preview) technology.

Update: The press conference is now over. Click the image below for the recording, straight from my laptop's Web cam. There's about 10 minutes of waiting around before Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg takes the stage, so you might want to skip ahead.

Update 2: Ok, sorry, this video is awful. I blame two things: My cheapo Logitech Web cam, and the fact that I used the press conference WiFi, which was overloaded. Next time, I'll use cellular (EV-DO or UMTS), which has slower max throughput than WiFi, but which is much more stable. The good news is, we had a professional camera crew at this event, so we can replace the Webcam video below with the pro tape once it's through production.

See more Facebook coverage on Webware. And Facebook: The social Web utility company, by Dan Farber on ZDNet.

Updates from the conference:

… Read more