from Inside Facebook by
Justin Smith
To say it’s been an eventful year in the world of Facebook and the Platform would be quite an understatement. 2007 saw the birth of a new way of building and distributing software on the web that spurned on the imagination of entrepreneurs and awoke industry giants. In the future, we may look back on this year as a time of “social networking frenzy” that turns out to be more hype than substance. Or, we may look back on it as a time when the way the people use the Internet changed.
Here’s a look at the top 10 Facebook stories of 2007, as told through the eyes of a product manager in Silicon Valley:
1. Facebook launches Platform, intends to become “social operating system”
意在成为社会操作系统、关系操作系统（其视界远远超过了我所能看到的个案西管理工具这么简单）
On May 25, Facebook unveiled the “Facebook Platform” at f8 in San Francisco. Dozens of apps were showcased from several launch partners. Breaking from the command-and-control approach to third party widgets employed by others at the time, the Platform allowed deeper integration points than any other API, and allowed anyone to sign up and start developing–and keep all the revenue. Hundreds of developers gathered for an all-day hack-a-thon to kick the tires on the new Platform, and by the end of the year, over 10,000 applications had been launched.
2. Facebook Platform becomes the most viral software distribution system ever
成为了最活跃软件发布平台
Within two weeks, music application iLike added 1.7 million users, making it one of the fastest growing applications on any platform ever. Within three weeks, an astounding 10 applications added over 1 million users each. Software developer Craig Ulliott, creator of the then-side-project Where I’ve Been application, asked, “I have 250,000 users, now what?” as his servers crash under the traffic load. 65 million applications were installed in the first month - an average of 2.5 per user. By December, that number had risen to over 700 million.
3. Facebook user base, traffic numbers soar
用户数目的增长，扶摇直上九万里，这是多少人的梦想？
After the Platform launched, traffic and new users to Facebook soared: after three weeks, page views increased by a third. The post-college crowd helped Facebook’s reach double from 2006 to 2007. Facebook’s total userbase grew from about 15 million in January to 30 million in July. In December, it stood at about 58 million. Facebook added an average of 250,000 new users per day in 2007.
4. Facebook’s News Feed offers a new paradigm for sharing information (and marketing)
newsFeed开创了信息分享和市场扩展的新图景。（仔细想想，难道不是人们日常思维的最直接体现么？）
When the Mini Feed and News Feed launched in September 2006, users were concerned by what it meant for privacy. Since then, the News Feed has come to be accepted as one of the most important advances in social networking technology. Facebook filters an average of 30,000 story candidates into a customized stream of 60 stories for each user every day.（得来全不费功夫，呵呵，正找呢，很好！） For social networking marketers, getting into the News Feed has become just as important as getting into the first page of Google’s search results.
5. Facebook Platform creates an application economy
开创了应用开发的经济共同体。（）
When Facebook announced the Platform, it announced that application developers could keep 100% of the revenues their apps generate. This, in turn, led to a frenzy of early acquisitions and investments. Just a month after the Platform launched, SideStep acquired Extended Info. Shortly thereafter, Slide bought Favorite Peeps for $60,000, the first publicly reported transaction price. Lee Lorenzen started a trend by making Altura Ventures “the first Facebook-only VC.” In July, Bay Partners launched AppFactory to invest in Facebook application developers. Over the course of the summer, several ad networks were started to sell Facebook application inventory. In September, Mark Zuckerberg announced the formation of the fbFund, a Facebook-affiliated fund specifically set up to deploy grants to innovative application creators.
6. Google organizes OpenSocial, Facebook opens Platform architecture
google准备opensocial的时候，facebook已经开放平台的架构了。（还有其他的社会网络？来吧。我这里都开放了，还有用户，你来吗？反正很厉害的bebo等都来了）
After failing in its bid to partner with or invest in Facebook, Google announced the OpenSocial API, an open API that would allow application developers to build apps to run on multiple social networks. However, manged by a consortium of companies, OpenSocial has failed to get off the ground due to an incomplete spec, and the first social networks supporting it are not expected to be ready until early next year. Meanwhile, in December, Facebook announced it was opening its Platform architecture for adoption by other social networks, and Bebo launched its platform by announcing it was completely adopting Facebook’s architecture from the start.
7. Microsoft invests $240 million in Facebook at $15 billion valuation
微软的豪赌下注采购很小一份。但是他很欣慰，因为赢了google,在互联网的棋盘上。
In a major strategic coup over Google, Microsoft won a minority stake and an expanded advertising relationship with Facebook in October. The price? A mere $15 billion valuation - or about 100x TTM revenues. (Facebook execs allegedly played the two off each other masterfully, driving the valuation way up.) Rumors that Facebook also took $500 million from two hedge funds proved to be false, but the company did take $60 million from Chinese billionaire Ling Ka-Shing in December.（小小八卦一把，看来互联网公司也和娱乐圈一样需要炒作。此前不是发布、辟谣、现在再确认。注意力经济，互联网世界里面所谓创新的理念，其实人家娱乐圈早就已经驾轻就熟了:P）
8. Facebook backtracks on Beacon
放弃灯塔广告计划（既然胁用户以令诸侯，那么让用户满意或者至少不反感就是最基本的了。谁说facebook没有错误的时候呢？但是，这个思路绝对是对的。他肯定还要往下走。职能的精准广告，还以朋友关系为依托，不正是广告界梦寐以求的么？）
With a splashy launch in New York, Facebook announced several new advertising products for businesses in November. One of them, Beacon, was particularly aggressive: it allowed partner sites to send information about a user’s off-Facebook activity to Facebook for sharing in that user’s News Feed. After privacy advocates spooked advertisers by complaining that the program was opt-out instead of opt-in, Facebook reversed course.
9. Facebook lures top talent
人才争夺（占领长久的制高点。看看吧，google的人都来了！）
Planning to increase head count to over 700 by the end of 2008, Facebook was able to hire top talent (before its massive valuation increase) in 2007, including some top engineers from Google. Former Googler Justin Rosenstein called Facebook “the Google of yesterday, the Microsoft of long ago,” adding, “I have drunk from the Kool-aid, and it is delicious.” Benjamin Ling, a former Director of Product Management at Google, left for Facebook in October.
10. Facebook courts businesses with Pages and Social Ads
商业诉求、社会化广告，终极目标。（但是这就是小伙子的终极野心么？刚刚的消息不是说，已经开始测试自己的支付网关了么？google有自己的支付系统也不过几天的事情）
In an attempt to monetize its “social graph” more effectively, Facebook allowed businesses to create a presence inside Facebook for the first time (except for expensive sponsorships) in November with the launch of Pages. At the same time, Facebook launched Pages, a souped-up version of its old Flyers program, which together offer advertisers unprecedented levels of targeting and analytics inside a social network.
标签： Anlysis, Facebook, Google, Operation, SNS, Strategy, Thinking
