Facebook Wants to Power Web-Wide Apps - Page 2

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Following the change, users also can choose from different display options, and their friends also can publish items like photos and stories on a contact's wall.

Zuckerberg received applause when he said Facebook also has gotten rid of annoying pop-ups that prompt a user to add an application when they were browsing it.

The redesign also eliminates the need for users to add applications just to see the content other users were generating with them. Now, you can see what your friends publish on any application they use.

At the same time, a revamped news feed system computes all the most interesting things happening in someone's network that day and automatically displays them on their profiles.

A wide vision, but revenue questions linger

According to Zuckerberg, those efforts will better pave the way for a rapidly shifting world in which the big social networks decentralize into a series of social applications on the Web that can interact with each other.

The vision sounds similar to that of the Web 2.0 crowd, but that buzzword was never mentioned at f8. The social media ecosystem seems intent on developing separately and independently.

"We're at the beginning of a movement and the beginning of an industry," Zuckerberg added.

The new oversight for applications that Facebook is describing sounds somewhat like approaches in use by companies including Qualcomm or Salesforce.com. Qualcomm, the mobile applications provider, verifies and sells third-party applications directly to users as well as to network operators. Salesforce.com operates AppExchange, where end users can subscribe to applications that run on top of the basic service for an additional fee.

There's one big difference in Facebook's strategy, at least at this point. It's free to use Facebook, and it would be free to use many of the third-party applications that run on top of it.

At the press conference, InternetNews.com asked Zuckerberg how Facebook would earn revenue in this decentralized world, and he gave the same answer Google executives give when asked about monetization of projects like Orkut.

"In the next few years," he said, "we're just going to focus on the value we provide ... Figuring how we monetize is something we'll work on, but it's a second priority."

He also said Facebook's feed structure will become an important piece of this new ecosystem, which will also continue to be used on the site.

"As time goes on," he said, "we'll see more rapid growth in terms of the number of apps built outside of Facebook. That will add value for the core platform we're building and for the feed system we're building."

"The world is moving in this direction," he added. "It's not like we have a choice."