Mark Zuckerberg describes Facebook as a service designed to help people communicate better, primarily through the social graph, which is the network of connections and relationships between people.
The social graph, he said, is the reason Facebook works. The popular social applications, such as Flirtable, FunWall and SuperPoke, built on the Facebook platform, are only a small part of Facebook’s bigger ambition to help people communicate better.
In fact, Facebook is on a collision course with the more mature Web colonies–AOL, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.
One of the key metrics of a major portal is stickiness–the number of applications used per member and time spent on the site. Communications services, such as e-mail, instant messaging, group chat, and forums, have proven to be very sticky.
Facebook is about to introduce a basic chat service and have some rudimentary e-mail capabilities. While Facebook executives have been cagey about specific plans to build more capable communications applications, they will evolve to be competitive with what AOL, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo offer. Continue Reading »