Don't get confused: Facebook's open stream approach isn't like Twitter's

Facebook announced the launch today of its Open Stream API, a new set of tools that will allow application developers to access users' "streams" -- the never-ending set of updates, photos and shared links that constitute what Facebook calls "the core" of its product.

"We've spent a bunch of time thinking about how to open up the Facebook experience to outside developers for innovation," said Dave Morin, a platform designer at Facebook, who said that there were more than 660,000 developers building applications for the social network. "But this is the first time we've opened up the core user experience for consumption outside of the Facebook.com website."

Developers of new open applications will be able to siphon stream data from the site and use it to fuel Facebook-based applications elsewhere on the Web. That creates the potential to harness a great deal of valuable user-generated data, which could be used to track consumer trends among the site's more than 200 million global users.

Users will maintain control of their data privacy, Morin noted, and applications will be able to access streams only with individual users' permission -- largely the way Facebook's current on-site application system works. The data harvested by new applications will be subject to the same privacy strictures as any other data on Facebook: Even if it's on other websites, it will still be visible only by your friends, not the public at large.

Still, once developers are granted permission, they'll have broad access ...

to what appears in a user's stream. A detailed explanation of the new API tools tells developers that "reading the stream gives you all the content of a user's stream, including posts from the user and the user's friends, regardless of privacy settings of the posts."

A potentially confusing sentence in the same paragraph reads, "You can then display the stream's contents in your application or on your site."

People used to the way Twitter works might have to think for an extra minute about why it's OK that Facebook is allowing third parties to take their data and move them to other sites. The critical qualifier, which Facebook buries in the middle of its announcement, is that developers "can access the stream on behalf of a user and then filter, remix and display the stream back to that user however you choose." (Bold added for emphasis.)

Translation: The new applications will be able to publish data across the Web -- but the audience for that remixed data will be the original Facebook user, not the public. 

That distinction is important because Facebook's move to allow off-site developers to mine user information has been seen as an attempt to replicate the way Twitter's messaging system developed. Twitter, an outward-facing platform in which all user information is public by default, has nourished a wide ecosystem of third-party applications that take advantage of the high volume of public data Twitter users generate. Twitter applications can track a variety of trends embedded in the collective data, including things such as the most popular articles and the most frequently tweeted words.

But while open Facebook applications may be able to capture users' data to create similar types of analysis and trend tracking, the data itself will remain private. 

In that way, Facebook's new system is both open and closed. 

"We’re all about giving the user the control to share information with the people that they want to," Morin assured.

-- David Sarno [follow]

Comments

[Sarah]

So now I will post less. Or stop, more likely. This would not bother me if I had control. But now you're going to bypass me and get my info by gaining approval from my friends to steal it??! Wrong wrong wrong. Facebook, you've jumped the shark. I'm sick and tired of telling you to stop "mining" me and respect my privacy. I don't BELIEVE you anymore. You simply lie.

[mucker]

A potentially confusing sentence in the same paragraph reads, "You can then display the stream's contents in your application or on your site."

What is confusing about that is that it's so dang straight forward. It is echoed in the previous paragraph "the stream gives you all the content of a user's stream, including posts from the user and the user's friends, regardless of privacy settings of the posts."

I am afraid Sarah is right. I cannot believe that granting access to all the data to be used in the developers site is in any way shape or form"protecting the privacy of facebook users. If indeed I can tell them to not do this - without having to drill down to find the one opt out box I may just come on board at face book. Anyone?

[purba]

I think Sarah is right too. When will facebook stop treating us as a database mining source? You cannot bypass privacy by using flowery and technical garb that most people fail to understand. It is WRONG, even if you disguise it in fancy words! Looks like it is the beginning of the end- like all other good things!

[Richard Cunningham]

I think they will struggle to convince people to open their content on facebook to the public.

Though make no mistake, this is big step for them. For at least the last 2 years, facebook has been the most restrictive API we have aggregated on http://friendbinder.com. Before we were unable to get status update replies or reply or get notifications from applications and now these will be open.

There is however more they could do, such as opening up the facebook mail system to the API (Twitter for example lets you access it's DM system) and they could open up the facebook chat system to use XMPP.

[Jewel]

Ever since the "new" facebook, the mobile site hasn't been as useful. This should allow a third party to change that rapidly.

It should also allow a third party to make a decent RSS feed.