July 10, 2007
PLE = Platform Learning Environment?
I've been thinking back over my tinkerings with the Stringle string'n'glue environment over the last week or two - in fact, since the Facebook platform launch - and I think the idea of it was just right (a single container for third party apps) with a significant missing ingredient - the idea of turning Stringle into a fully fledged platform.
The Facebook platform does what Stringle was intended to do - provide a single place to go to use 3rd party apps. However, Facebook goes further by encouraging 3rd party application providers to hook into Facebook itself (which was a step I hadn't envisioned for Stringle, but which, with hindsight, follows naturally...)
Facebook also has a considerable user community, which is a great incentive for third party app developers wanting to expand their reach. (In fact, Facebook is so attractive - for the moment, bearing in mind that Facebook will die - that there is now even a VC fund dedicated to Facebook app developers. Hmm...are there any "widget developer only" funds, I wonder? or eBay developer funds? or Amazon developers funds, even?)
At the moment I have Zoho (heh heh ;-)) and Slideshare as apps added to my Facebook profile (as well as a couple of others), which provide me with online office tools and presentation sharing/viewing.
In use, these two applications demonstrate two different ways of integrating Facebook with third party apps.
When you add Slideshare (and also Splashcast) to Facebook, a new account is created on the third party app, tied to your Facebook account. (I'm not sure if this means I can log into the app directly, and not through Facebook, maybe using an ID with some sort of Facebook tag embedded in it? (I can imagine the potential for all sorts of name registration collisions otherwise...) This is great if you don't already have a Slideshare account - one click registration is effectively provided - but potentially a pain if you do (although you can import slideshows from other Slideshare accounts)).
Adding Zoho, on the other hand, allows you to associate an outstanding Zoho account, or create a new one.
The integration extends as far as providing a list of files associated with all your Zoho apps (personal and shared) - documents, presentations, spreadsheets and so on. A Zoho Office directory, if you like. Clicking any link opens that document in a new window in the appropriate Zoho application.
One possible downside of the latter approach - associating third party app credentials with a Facebook account - is the need to "lend" Facebook your login details for other services.
OpenID would be brilliant here - being able to associate an OpenID with your Facebook account would make registering with OpenID enabled third party applications trivial (on adding an app Facebook would try to log you in with the OpenID you had associated with the Facebook account). For maintaining accounts on third party services, a Facebook authenticated OpenID might provide an efficient approach?
It will be interesting to see how long Facebook retains its mantle, give the increasing commoditisation of social networks, and the "1-click" network custom social network set-up that services like Ning offers. Facebook is sticky, though.
I'm also watching out for someone to "do an AOL" and start shipping a customised browser, optimised for social networking - something like Flock maybe?
(Many players, large and small, offer browser extensions, of course. For example, eBay recently launched a Firefox ebay edition toolbar, but the degree of customisation it provides is limited.)
PS I can't resist posting this. I always thought that Second Life was - for most people - just a glorified chat client: AjaxLife ;-)
Posted by ajh59 at July 10, 2007 10:46 PM