The Industry Standard - Facebook announces iPhone application platform at F8 - Comments

@David, comment moderation

Eric Hill812251 — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:43:49 -0700

@David, comment moderation is tough. We have CAPTCHA in place, and it works fairly well, but there are actual human beings who continually test its capabilities by pasting in spam links that aren't in the system yet, animated gifs, and essentially just nonsensical garbage. As soon as they find a perceived weakness , they try to exploit it. Once we delete all of their junk (usually within 24 hours) they become disenchanted and move on to some other site. But there are many, and they breed like a virus, it seems.

Some even take the time to create real user accounts purely for the purpose of posting spam. Obviously, once we catch it we delete the spam, and the users. But, it's a constant battle.

Feel free to "flag" those comments when you see them. That will help us get the junk off the site that much faster and keep the discussion where we all want it to be without these annoying gnats flying around. We also don't have any tolerance for racist, abusive or obscene comments, but that's another topic altogether.

CAPTCHA is a good system to fight bots and most spammers, but it definitely isn't perfect. Case in point: Craigslist.org. For all of the great things Craigslist offers, their battle against spam (and illegal activity) is legendary. It truly comes down to dealing with annoying and/or insidious human beings who will always be smarter than a script.

@Eric,

David Kuan — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:08:24 -0700

@Eric, http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheIndustryStandard-Comments. I don't see any now but there were a bunch last few days. Perhaps, you can scan further back in history or the feed. Will post again when I see samples of spams.

@David, would be be able to

Eric Hill812251 — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:46:24 -0700

@David, would be be able to send me a screenshot of what you're referring to? Which feed?

Looking into it. Also, for

Eric Hill812251 — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:44:23 -0700

Looking into it. Also, for this prediction, the particulars are a little sticky. We're taking our time on this judgment to make sure were 100% behind the decision (which may or may not be popular). Sorry for the delay.

@Eric, BTW, the RSS has been

David Kuan — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 06:35:18 -0700

@Eric, BTW, the RSS has been bombarded with lots of spam. Did the TIS CAPITCHA gets compromised?

This is a done

David Kuan — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:26:10 -0700

This is a done deal.

http://www.insidefacebook.com/2008/07/23/qa-with-facebook-execs-at-f8/

@Shiv and @Bradley, that's a

Eric Hill812251 — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:04:00 -0700

@Shiv and @Bradley, that's a good idea. For now, however, you can subscribe to the RSS feed for Predictions to the newest additions as they get published.

Although after making that

Bradley Baker — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:43:45 -0700

Although after making that comment I see that both of the newly-created predictions from last night DO appear in that location. Perhaps I just missed them originally or they temporarily weren't there?

@Shiv: Agreed. Until

Bradley Baker — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:18:26 -0700

@Shiv: Agreed. Until recently new predictions appeared at the top of the "Featured Predictions" list, but that seems to have stopped in the past week or so.

There should be a section

Shiv Bhandari — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:11:00 -0700

There should be a section for 'Newly Added Predictions' on the predictions page. Many newly created predictions slip in under the radar.

Facebook announces iPhone application platform at F8

The Standard — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:39:42 -0700

We're judging this one favorably, which means that the community was, as only very rarely happens, wrong. Facebook announced that Facebook apps on the iPhone will be possible by the Fall. Per the prediction: “Facebook needs to at least announce that this will be made this possible, and in the case that it does, the prediction will be judged favorably.” Admittedly the details are vague, but an SDK that includes a Cocoa framework that works with Facebook Connect should do the trick, technically speaking. It will indeed be possible to purchase an application in the iPhone App Store that runs on Facebook data. --The Industry Standard

Nick O'Neil over at AllFacebook speculates that now that the Facebook e-commerce system is all but in the can, on deck might be an iPhone application platform for Facebook apps. In the ever-more heated race to capture the hearts and minds of developers everywhere, Facebook watchers will be keen to see how Zuckerberg and Co. respond to the newly vogue (and quite profitably, by some early estimates) iPhone 2.0 platform.

Caroine McCarthy over at CNET hits the nail on the head regarding what's at stake here:

"With more than 550 third-party applications available at launch, Apple's new mini marketplace means that for the first time since the social-application craze started more than a year ago, the hottest new trend has nothing to do with Web-based networks."

That is, Facebook's own platform has been wildly successful to-date, but the company would do well to do everything its its power to prevent developers from jumping ship. In fact it is arguable that Facebook's army of platform developers are as much responsible for the company's success as anyone on the official payroll. Recent high-profile spats with Slide's TopFriends application likely haven't helped matters, either. Not to mention the more clear path to advertising revenue (a challenge that Facebook is still very much working on) and profitability generally (small time developers for Facebook are having a hard time making money these days) that the iPhone currently enjoys.

The solution to these problems would obviously be to find a way to port Facebook applications over to the iPhone platform, meaning that, for example, Facebook would release new code that would allow developers writing for Facebook's platform to also sell those apps as stand-alone offerings in the iPhone App Store. These hybrid apps would run on Facebook's data and/or even possibly interact or sync with Facebook's own iPhone app, and it's anyone's guess how profits would be divided up, but as outlined here this scheme would have the benefit of giving developers a foothold in both realms -- and keeping them happy in the process.

This is a prediction that at F8 (July 23rd) Facebook will announce changes to the Facebook platform that will enable current (and future) Facebook applications to be offered in the iPhone App Store -- apps that will run on Facebook data. Now, this is a hard prediction to bet on, as well as an equally hard prediction to judge. So, to be clear, in making a decision we will be looking at only one factor. Whatever Facebook announces, the following one condition must be met in order to trigger favorable judgement of the prediction: it must be possible to purchase an application in the iPhone App Store that runs on Facebook data.

What does "runs on Facebook data" mean?

From a technical perspective this simply means that it must be possible to develop an application using the Apple iPhone SDK while simultaneously using FQL (Facebook Query Language) to pull data out of Facebook, and FBML (Facebook Markup Language) to hook into Facebook integration points, such as the Profile or News Feed. Facebook needs to at least announce that this will be made this possible, and in the case that it does, the prediction will be judged favorably.