Why Facebook is the real web 3.0

Something strange is happening on the web lately... Facebook seems to be replacing large web 2.0 sites, with its own internal applications, for free! I daresay, facebook IS the Web 3.0 everyone is trying to define.

Could they have a better business model? They have harnessed the good parts of open source development, allowing everyday developers to write a simple application, and publish to millions of very active users, for nothing! Facebook gains the traffic and added functionality from the apps, while the developers have a real chance to make money through a recent funding project, and by integrating advertising and information gathering into their applications for personal profit. Its a win-win, something very rare in the business world.

Consider some of the problems with the current 'internets', and how facebook solves them:

1. The Digg of Applications : find the good in the bad
The internet offers huge choice for a consumer, as new sites and applications appear daily. The problem being with so many choices, the quality of applications varies greatly. As a new internet user, how can you tell good from bad?

With the recent rush of facebook applications being built, the community becomes the digg of web applications, with popularity ratings, suggestions, and by its sharing nature, guided suggestions of whats the next big application.

The advantage of this, you can send a new internet user to facebook, and they can gain 90% of the good parts of the recent 10 years of web development, in one single place. A one stop shop for socialising, games, blogging, trading, news and more. The advantage is, the consumer gets the advantages of the fast open source development, with the safety of a managed environment, which leads me to..

2. More secured and managable environment : The internet is inherently insecure, especially with the recent increase in drive-by infections, and the constant battle between browser builders and the phishing, scamming and hacking world.

While I have no doubt there will be a facebook worm/hack that effects the community, the ability to control the response is far greater by the environment being managed.

Also, given the nature of the langugage used for developing facebook apps, the API offers the good parts of the environment, while restricting other less secure areas.

3. The one stop shop, you means there's another internet?

An amazing amount of new web users think that Google (insert default homepage search portal) is 'the internet', entering URLs in the search box, and generally being lost if the browser they start doesnt show what they are used to. Given the extremely fast uptake of facebook lately, I think we will see an increase in people who do not need to leave the facebook environment, to gain what they need from the technology.

Everyday it seems a new application is launched that provided the same functionality some websites have been investing in and building for years. Being a developer, I like seeing new websites, ideas and technologies, but a majority on not so tech-savvy users, do not care about this. They want functionality, and they know they can get it very easily at facebook.

The future.?

I think we are about to see an explosion in the usefulness of the internet. Finally there is a secure, useful place to get the best from the technology, in a consistent environment. Whats more, all of your non-tech friends are actually happy to use, and see the benefit in, being part of this online community. MySpace was the first of these, but I think 2 major differences in facebook that will set it apart are the consistent interface, and the secured environment/API. Interesting times ahead :)