Photos are the biggest thing. Facebook is to a large extent a photo sharing site, but their TOS prohibit you from doing anything interesting with the photos -- they're trapped inside FB. - Paul Buchheit
Yes, Mr. Morin. Tear. Down. This. Wall. - MG Siegler
I also want photos to flow into Facebook from other repositories. Display my Flickr photos in Facebook and let people tag them please. - Benjamin Golub
Man with all the hypocrisy, it really stinks in here. - Gavin
does not gov have the same exact motivation for not opening up as facebook? - Fred Grott
@sacca's point is fun, but it's a fact that the gov's data is ours, and debatable that FB's is. Both would be great, but the Gov's should happen yesterday. - Nate Koechley
First, government data is created through taxpayer dollars and since we all kinda have an ownership stake in the gov, we should have access to its data. FB data is FB's, per their TOS. Second, FB has data that is more valuable than other services -- it's a big business decision for them to be more open or not, and imho it's not clear if being more open is worth it to them at this point. Update: I see Nate already said basically the same thing. Anyway..... - Eric Eldon
Unfortunately most government organizations get the lowest-bidding contractors to build their content which usually means lock-in to proprietary data and clunky 'net applications. Just check out some of their intranets. IE6-only VBscript running on 10-year old proprietary multimillion dollar software - Glenn Batuyong via twhirl
I've seen a lot of agencies just mirror "what works at other government offices" which tends to perpetuate this cycle of technical stagnation. Some orgs do get the message and it's usually because of some introduction of Web 2.0 technology into certain facets. However, it needs to be internally evangelized and pushed up the ladder to the decision-making personnel (who usually don't understand the need). - Glenn Batuyong via twhirl
Bumping my follow up Twitter comment to FriendFeed comments: Back to my comment on the government. Wouldn't it be awesome to get updates on new laws and programs through the various social feeds? My thoughts on this come from the new cellular phone law in California. I think many people are probably finding out about this for the first time by seeing the blinking signs above the highway. It would be amazing if a notification for a new law came in through twitter, or friendfeed, or facebook (or all of them). - Dave Morin
Yes but Dave you missed everyone's point the value proposition is not in opening up as you would hoped but holding back. Politicians hide info to keep power, corps hide information to keep customers locked in..when users finally have away to route around than that info-lock in has NO POWER..that day is coming Dave very soon - Fred Grott
My comment was intended as a prod between pals. I make it a habit to tease Dave and other friends at FB about the relatively closed nature of some of their platform. I was by no means attempting to jump into the fray regarding OpenSocial/FriendConnect.
That said, as a FB user, while I was thrilled to see them start passing full text emails to me, it does bum me out that I can't reply back to the thread from my regular email inbox. It is an annoyance, and Dave has heard this from me before. This seemed like a fun opportunity to remind him of my #1 feature request.
More importantly, for the record, I am particularly impressed by Dave Morin when I see him participate candidly in public discussions regarding issues like these despite his high profile. Having been in a big company and knowing the effort that it takes to manage internal PR in parallel with community expectations, my hat goes off to him. It is very clear that Dave cares deeply about users and works hard to make them happy. - Sacca
@fred gott. i'm sure dave would like to know how soon that day is, since you seem to have such a clear idea. - Eric Eldon
WRT the lowest bidding contractor theory, hows about some of the more financially comfortable devs offer up their services in the form of govt contracts with outrageously low bids. Put your money where your mouth is so to speak. - Erica Baker
@eric listen to Gillmor Gang its closer than u think - Fred Grott
@Fred we agree on a lot of this. i was put off, however, by your antagonistic language towards dave, who has been at the forefront of opening up social network data to third parties for quite some time now. - Eric Eldon
@eric users wanting their data as free as possible has none of the tone you subscribe to me - Fred Grott
@Fred how many Facebook users want their data free right now? - Eric Eldon
Better if govs give access to the raw data. In my experience, trying to get a decent api from a gov department is kind of tricky. If you get the raw data there are plenty of companies & non-profits who are willing & able to build decent APIs around it. - Nick Lothian
@eric its not free part as u imply we want useful data that can only come about by full data-portability no user will ask for free or data portability because they do not know it as that. - Fred Grott
@fred i fundamentally agree with you. i just think facebook gets too much shit for "not going far enough" even though it has been the (social networking) industry leader in data-sharing. just look at how myspace was treating third party developers in previous years. this is a process. - Eric Eldon
This is what will happen more often with FriendFeed - items that appear and are discussed here will become news more and more. Expect this to happen more often. - Ben Parr
agree with Eric Eldon's take on Dave's comment. facebook maybe deserves a little bit of shit for not always being transparent on the PR, but seriously they get waaaaaaay too much crap for being "proprietary" about their innovation & leadership. folks that really want new & cool stuff should also realize that there is a cost to risk-taking & research, and that is often recouped via proprietary measures. and if it ISN'T uniquely innovative, other competitors will take down their walls with better shit. - dave mcclure
