facebook platform : the "WebOS" is here

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Alright, so here's the skinny :

  • What is F8?
    F8 was the name of the event. Duh.
  • What did Facebook announce today?
    Facebook launched the Facebook Platform.
  • What does that mean?
    Ok, remember when the first PC was launched? What did we do? As developers, one of the first things we did was build apps to run on it. Initially we had to take in to account things like interfacing with the drivers and all that jazz ourselves. But the platform got better and started to obfuscate a lot (some, depending on what you did, or how you looked at things) of these details for us. What have we been doing since? Building more apps, doing as much as we can to make humans as productive as possible using the PC. And the platform (the PC + the OS) got better over time, so we could do more with it, as developers, as consumers, as humans.
  • Ok, so what does the Facebook Platform have do with anything?
    Think of it as the " WebOS" . (You like that?) So today, Zuckerberg announced a platform for building apps on Facebook. You can incorporate ads in to your apps. Make money of it. Whatever. Its the FacebookOS. Its the SocialOS (thanks, Om).
  • What's the big collaboration with M$ about?
    Great question - so, now, you can create your own Popfly gadget, and add it to your Facebook page. You can add your Silverlight application to your facebook page.
  • Where can I see examples?
    So, a few of us hacked away at the f8 hackathon and created some apps. 
    o MyTestProj - I added Paramesh's popfly gadget to my page here : https://apps.f8.facebook.com/mytestproj (seems to be down at the moment)
    o KarstenJ and I came to the conclusion that the Silverlight app support isn't quite ready yet (on the Facebook platform). But I've connected with the developers at Facebook and I'll look to getting it fixed.
  • How do I start creating my own app on Facebook?
    Start here - https://developers.f8.facebook.com/ 
  • Ok, so I'm a WinForms or an ASP.NET or a WPF developer, and I want to incorporate some Facebooky stuff in my app. How do I do it?
    Easy, use the Facebook Developer Toolkit, created by Clarity Consulting. Seriously, this thing is like teh awesomest. I'll let these images do the talking, but for more info you need to check out https://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/showcase/.

facebookcontrol              facebookrolodex

[**Video: Facebook Developer Toolkit Walkthrough (ASP.NET)**](https://soapbox.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=5a2b8ffc-31a1-4041-97d0-44461f1fd764 "Facebook Developer Toolkit Walkthrough (ASP.NET)")

It's so funny how the web wave is evolving. Last year, it was ALL MySpace. MySpace was everywhere. They were our poster child at MIX. Facebook does what MySpace never wanted to do - Facebook opened their site up to developers. That was very web 2.0 of them. And, now, its ALL Facebook. Huge props. But, what (or who) is next?

Go on, Facebook me.

"ai"

PS: Did you notice my Facebook badge on the left? (unless you're using an RSS reader) I *love* it that it lets me put my current status on there. Awesomeness.

Technorati tags: f8, facebook, facebook platform launch, facebook platform, webos, socialos, mark zuckerberg, om malik, gigaom, popfly, silveright, karstenj, facebook developer toolkit, clarity consulting, myspace, web 2.0