Yesterday Shawn wrote that Facebook’s redesign may cause many apps to die, but the ones that survive, will be far more useful. The question is, whether this is symbolic of a larger and more fundamental change in Facebook’s strategy. Could Facebook be moving away from its roots as a time-killing distraction, in favor of becoming a powerful tool for productivity and real entertainment?
Facebook’s focus on the news feed might be one key example of this shift. Stealing a page from Twitter and FriendFeed, Facebook has quickly become the dominant player in life streaming. While not a single friend of mine outside of the tech world would be able to tell you what Twitter is, a good majority of them now post regular status updates on Facebook. This, along with the new commenting capabilities they’ve added, has made lifestreaming an increasingly mainstream activity.
Facebook has also become an extremely popular instant messaging platform. Facebook IM is still a bit raw compared to some other clients, but it has one major advantage: more of your friends may be on Facebook, at this point, than on AIM.
This is really just the beginning of what’s possible, though. Facebook’s start-menu-like application bar is no doubt an indication that the company sees itself as web operating system. A couple weeks ago, Shawn wrote about Facebook’s potential as a killer collaboration tool for enterprise. The same set of tools could be equally useful for everyone else, especially students. Most high school and college students haven’t even heard of Google Docs, even though they could benefit significantly from it. Since students spend so much time on Facebook anyway (and most of their friends are on it as well), it is a very logical place to share and collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
Needless to say, these apps aren’t easy to build. But Facebook might just be the perfect fit for them. The market for online collaboration apps is still very immature, mostly because of a lack of consumer awareness. Whether Facebook intends to build them alone, or whether someone else seizes the opportunity, the company is clearly setting a new tone with each step it makes. Like its initial user base of college students, it’s possible that Facebook is growing up and becoming a productive member of society?
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