Facebook Opens API; Bebo Jumps On Board

Social networking site Facebook has opened its platform API to other sites, and Bebo has already announced plans to support both it and Google's OpenSocial.

Social networking site Facebook was the first to open its platform to application developers, enabling ambitious coders and opportunist marketers alike to create widgets that can populate user’s pages and profiles. The move prompted other social networking sites to open their platforms to developers—or at least to promise to do so. Now, Facebook has taken things one step further, announcing it will open its API for use on sites other than Facebook. And social networking site Bebo is the first on board, announcing plans to embrace the Facebook platform&hellp;although it also plans to support Google’s OpenSocial.

The idea behind Facebook throwing open its APi is somewhat parallel to Sun’s promises with Java all those years ago: developers can write their widget or application once, and it ought to be able run on any site supporting the Facebook API. “By opening up our API and establishing an open developer-friendly platform, we enable developers big and small to create entertaining, engaging applications for our global community—providing another great way for Beboers to communicate, relate and express themselves online,” said Bebo co-founder and CEO Michael Birch, in a statement.

Facebook has published some preliminary documentation for FBML—Facebook Markup Language!—that are essentially extensions to HTML that enable developers to integrate their applications directly with Facebook services, like polling friends lists and images, names, and links to profiles. The Facebook platform is also implemented in ways that try to respect users’ privacy: the Facebook platform is aware of the context in which FBML tags are used and provide different information (or none at all) based, for instance, on how the tag is called, or whether a user appears on a block list.

To date, developers have built over 7,000 applications for Facebook, although comparatively few see widespread usage within Facebook itself.