Facebook’s new head of mobile products, Eric Tseng, spoke today at MobileBeat 2010, introducing a new approach to the company’s OpenGraph.
“Where we’re going from here is a platform strategy. We’re going away from a one-off app strategy,”
In other words, OpenGraph’s going mobile, in more ways than one.
Goin’ Mobile
First, Facebook considers and will approach further development of OpenGraph as a platform with infinite reach. Second, you’ll soon see OpenGraph elements, like the Like button, growing out through unconnected mobile apps, as they already have through the non-mobile space. Facebook, after all, counts its mobile users at 150 million.
The “‘Like’ button for the entire Web” has now become the Like button for the post-Web world. Whether that is a good thing is highly debatable. That it is in fact a reality is not.
Social Intelligence
One of the examples Tseng gave, according to CNET, was of a location-aware coupon program that would gather feedback from friends and acquaintances. (Though if the current state of that technology is any indication, this example may remain just that for a while.)
The melding of app and social is happening apace. If Facebook’s intuition is right, it will continue, especially in the area of marketing and commerce. Tseng was quoted on VentureBeat.
“If you can actually layer on top of [location] some kind of social intelligence — not just the fact that I’m near Starbucks, but the fact that 30 of my friends really like this frappuccino over the last couple months — I’ve got an interesting use case.”
For a certain value of “interesting” anyway. Not necessarily thrilling, but maybe profitable.
