Nerdlife

I’m sitting here in a front-row seat for the f8 keynote.  I’ll be keeping this post updated as interesting things happen…so stay tuned!

1:29 pm: Waiting for the talk to start…great seat!  Music is good but a little loud

1:35 pm: Music out, Zuck in.  That is an amazingly hi-res projector!

1:36 pm: FB has been learning how to work with developers, made some mistakes along the way.

1:39 pm: FB mission: “Give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.”

1:42 pm: 24mil users at f8 ‘07, 90mil users now.  f8 ‘07 US/International ratio was 50/50, now more like 30/60

1:44 pm: Opening up translation tool for platforms, they can use FB’s users to translate apps.

1:45 pm: Over 400k developers, more than half outside the US.

1:48 pm: Top 5k bands have more fans on iLike than anywhere else (including MySpace Music).  Causes app has more users than Al Gore’s alliance campaign (the two have since merged).

1:49 pm: Over 30 different developers have been funded to develop FB apps.  Flixter got $6m and Zynga raised $29mil just this morning.

1:54 pm: Lessons learned: Need to work more closely with developers.  Need to align incentives better, reward good apps, punish bad apps.

1:56 pm: Walking us through new FB, explaining the new Wall.

2:04 pm: “We’ll do it live!”, giving us a live tour of the new feed.

2:10 pm: Talking about the decentralization of social networking, comparing the social network movement to the PC movement.  FB expects in a few years all good applications and uses will come from sources other than FB, just utilizing their platform.

2:13 pm: FB Connect: Goals: Build the same kinds of apps across the web, share info across the web, control your info across the web.  3rd party sites can use it to pull profile info, friend lists, etc.  You can also send FB hashes of your users emails and it will tell you if they are FB users.

2:15 pm: “It goes to their profile, and Christmas is ruined.”  Zuck has a sense of humor…nice!

2:18 pm: Someone from Digg is on stage to demo the Digg/FB Connect inegration, nice, clean, and simple.

2:20 pm: Six Apart is next, demoing comment authentication with FB Connect, followed by Citysearch for reviews & recommendations.

2:26 pm: Profile is being rolled out over time, FB Connect Beta is today.

2:27 pm: That’s it for Zuck.  Ben Ling takes the stage.

2:32 pm: They had a slide that lists universities researching FB Apps…they used a logo from Central Michigan University instead of Carnegie Mellon!!!

2:38 pm: Talking about what makes great apps, building trust, etc.

2:46 pm: Talking about partnerships with MS, Joyent, and AWS.  New Developer Website (about time!).  Also promising to build up a team to work more closely with the community.  Applause for initial fbFund recipients, discussing Connected Weddings as an example.

2:48 pm: New program: giving out $2mil over the next 2 months.  25 finalists get $25k, 5 finalists (voted by community) get $250k.

2:49 pm: Announcing FB Verification program: Apps that feel they are Secure, Respectful, and Transparent can apply and be verified (they get a badge).  Verified apps get more visibility on the site.

2:50 pm: Announcing FB Great Apps program: Apps that feel they are super-awesome (10 criteria + history of adherence to policies + minimum user base).  Great Apps are more integrated and more trusted, as well as getting early access to new features and feedback directly from FB.  iLike & Causes are the first 2 Great Apps, though the program is in Alpha.

2:53 pm: Talking about a more transparent and consistant process for enforcing abuse policies.

2:56 pm: FB Connect will be released for Desktop, Web , and Mobile (they have an iPhone Cocoa API).

2:58 pm: FB Connect launches full on next summer.  There’s a hackathon today running until 9pm, winners announced at 11pm.  That’s all :).

facebook, internet