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Facebook Goes Open Source

It was just a year ago that Facebook elevated their college kids only social networking site from a classier MySpace to a web portal in training with their release of Facebook Platform. Now, the buzz on the blogosphere according to TechCrunch and Facebook news blog, AllFacebook, is on how Facebook is working on an “open source initiative that is meant to help application developers better understand Facebook Platform and more easily build applications.”

This is the latest punch delivered in a seemingly endless fight between the major social networking sites. We started with MySpace’s recent announcement they were entering the data portability game and Google’s Friend Connect (which Facebook responded to by banning the service from accessing Facebook’s API; sneaky move!). Even Facebook released their very own data portability service, called Facebook Connect, which as troublemakers Valleywag pointed out, ensure there’s “nowhere on the web to hide”.

The Facebook Platform, which produced thousands of applications many users now see as nuisances and spam is now arguably past its heyday. As CNET says, there are other games in town now for developers and the Platform has become mainstream and “suburbanized.” The platform could use a face-lift like going open source, focusing on keeping developers happy and allowing them more flexibility.

Right now, details on the initiative are vague at best: Techcrunch broke the story and posts that with this new move, applications will be able to be run on any other social networking platform or vice versa.

There is no concrete information found on Facebook’s site or on their Developer’s section, but according to AllFacebook, there is a developer’s meeting scheduled this week where more details will be released. We’ll be interested to see what this development brings to the world of Facebook Platform.