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Facebook's F8 Conference Could Herald Birth of Location and Sharing Features

by Terrence O'Brien on April 21, 2010 at 01:15 PM

Facebook's F8 Conference Will Be a Torrent of Information
The Facebook developer conference F8 kicked off Wednesday, and plenty of changes to the platform will certainly be unveiled. We've heard some things about the new features, including Places, widgets and a new version of Facebook Connect, so here's what we know so far.

Sharing

Facebook Connect is getting tighter integration with a number of Web sites that will offer the ability to "like" articles or pages, and chat with Facebook friends without ever leaving the site in question. These features will be integrated into Facebook via new widgets for "liking" things online, as well as via a toolbar for sharing and chatting that developers will be encouraged to place at the bottom of their sites. The goal here is, of course, to take the Facebook experience beyond the borders of the social network proper with a powerful cross-site tool for sharing and gathering information about users' interests.

The broader deployment of Facebook Connect, and its new widgets and toolbars do come at a price, of course. Facebook has openly stated its intention to grant certain "pre-approved" Web sites access to your Facebook data without your explicit approval. This would allow users to "log in" to other sites with a Facebook account just as with the current version of Facebook Connect. In some cases, it would automatically log you in, thus opening any of your public data to that site, potentially without warning.

Location

The other major anticipated announcement, location-based updates, isn't scheduled to be the topic of a dedicated session or keynote, but we do expect some new information about the "places" feature to come out of F8. We already know that Facebook will be doing more than simply attaching a lat-long tag to updates, but exactly how it might integrate with other features such as Pages or Community Pages remains to be seen.

Facebook Credits

Finally, developers will get new information about Facebook Credits, a system for making in-app purchases through the social network. Developers, like Zygna (the company behind 'FarmVille'), have already figured out ways to monetize their Facebook apps, but the new credits system will simplify things for both sellers and consumers, thanks in part to a partnership with PayPal.

All of these new features and improvements may be a boon for developers, but, in the end, they're designed to take Facebook from powerful social network to Internet powerhouse -- on the scale of Google. The various ingredients here are really just pillars supporting both Insights and the Open Graph API (application programming interface). These tools will make it simpler for Facebook to gather, organize and share data regarding users and trends with companies and advertisers. This could not only turn Facebook into a one-stop shop for consumer tracking and advertising, but, if properly executed, could also turn it into one of the most profitable companies in the world.

Facebook will, of course, face challenges from Twitter's new @anywhere project, Google's Analytics, advertising programs and privacy advocates. But it is endlessly fascinating to watch the company grow up in the public sphere, morphing from a place to comment on photos into a powerful resource for companies and advertisers, and a rich platform for users to interact in increasingly interesting ways.

We'll of course be watching the conference all day (and you can follow along here). We'll bring you any major news as it's announced. [From: Facebook, All Facebook, and GigaOM]

Tags: facebook, FacebookConnect, insights, open graph api, OpenGraphApi, places, privacy, top

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