Will Facebook be the Windows of the web?
The other day I was doing a presentation where I explained that many Internet users think that Google is the Internet. It makes perfect sense, if you’ve not been a web junkie, logging onto most computers presents the user with a Google Screen.
Much like this, a number of people might see Facebook as operating system of the Internet. The fact that Facebook literally does everything a person needs, could easily guide a person into thinking that it is the “application”, which controls the Internet.
I’ve spent most of this year studying Facebook, watching the changes to the platform, watching which applications work, watching people move from photo sharing websites strictly to publishing their photographs on Facebook and what I have noticed with the most recent update is the position of the application menu at the bottom left of the screen. Doesn’t this resemble Windows? I think so.
When Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, bought Parakey, which is a web-desktop startup, there was word from Mark that he was going to turn Facebook into the operating system of the Internet.
Think of it this way, the following features replace websites and tools around the Internet:
- Pages replace simple websites
- Ads allow users to advertise anything they want to targetting markets, which replace a number of online advertising channels
- The Marketplace replaces websites such as Gumtree
- Photos replace systems such as Flickr/Thunda
- Events replace calendar systems such as Google Calendar and such
- Notes replace the requirement to have a blog, per say
- Wall/Inbox – Replaces emailing
- Chat replaces MSN/Gtalk (excl. voice, for now)
- Birthdays replaces websites with reminder systems
- Status Updates replace the requirement to use something like Twitter or Plurk
- Boxes allow you to basically create a desktop of all your applications (drag and drop, the works)
These are just a few of the more obvious ‘applications’ running inside Facebook. I’ve not even gone on to discuss the myriad of different applications which provide anything from business tools to educational tools to travel related tools!
It’s going to be extremely interesting to watch Facebook evolve over the next several months, whilst they build upon the new Facebook.
Christopher is the founder of iMod - Most of his time is spent building websites and pushing the limits with Search Engine Optimization. You can follow him on Twitter @ChristopherM
Sep 14th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
The signs are definitely there, I agree!
Semantic web trends have been evident for a very long time now and a complete restructure of the web is definitely on the way. There’s a video called next 5000 days of the internet, you should definitely watch it!
Amazon has a few projects called EC2 and S3, this too was a critical move for the future of the internet!
Nice article dude!
Sep 14th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Interesting points, and for some of the ‘lowest common denominators’ as they’re called in marketing babble, this may well be the case.
For the average person though, who uses the internet on a basic level, for things like the tasks mentioned above, Facebook is used almost entirely as a social and entertainment tool. Many companies have banned employees from using Facebook at work, and most people use the game and fun applications most frequently.
In the last few months, I have seen my invites to add various applications decrease quite steadily, and from my feed, people are not adding applications as much as they were in their Facebook ‘honeymoon’ phase. Also, people have not stopped using other applications like Flickr, Google Calendar, email, chat programs and so on, even if some people are using them less.
The average person I know, including myself, uses Facebook as in addition to these other applications, and many people I know are only logging on for a few hours a day at most. After the novelty wears off, it becomes more like an extended contact system with a lot of fun extras – lots of useful tools, but it will never replace the programs I use on a daily basis, more like compliment them.