[callmeed]

Here is the money line (IMO):

> Outside of games, there has been no killer Facebook app.

Given the current policies, I'm not sure what killer app could exist other than maybe dating.

I've done a lot of fiddling and prototyping on the Facebook platform and API (albeit mostly on the business/page side). With every-changing policies and API specs, no startup founder should consider anything more than Facebook "features"–never anything your business model hinges on.

[CBC440]

Facebook could have branched off into a few profitable models with their vast network. As you mentioned, dating would have been one avenue. Match.com may not have flashy revenue numbers but their profit margin is impressive.

They could have also been LinkedIn before LinkedIn really took off. People tried to use FB in that manner but the real value of LN is in the features they offer to businesses (recruiting, sales, etc). Again, they had this enourmous network but didn't think to add value to it.

They could have gone after Craigslist, especially in the realm of real estate where CL wants to make sure any searching is as painful as possible.

I also feel like they dropped the ball in regards to business marketing. Plenty of small businesses can't afford a real website, FB could have been a powerful platform for finding the kinds of small businesses that are buried by other sources. They know where you live, they could know what your network likes, and they could have offered cheap, professional looking pages that get the businesses close to you on board.

Their network has so much hidden potential but they've done nothing to dig it up. Use among my network is declining but not long ago it was the hub of the internet for many of my friends. They had the eyes and mindshare to get a billion people to at least try a new service. Add the power of all those connections and they could have deprecated half of the underpopulated, poorly designed, or poorly managed sites like Yelp.

[tibbon]

I agree with you- basing a startup on one of these platforms is incredibly risky (on top of the standard high risk that all startups have).

I myself have written a TON of code for Twitter, for example, that is no longer useful due to ever-increasing restrictions on the Twitter API (combined with the network growing more and more. I want my 20k API requests per hour back!). Since these platforms can change their terms and access at any moment, you could easily have a great idea and implementation that they invalidate accidentally (or intentionally). That's just too much risk for me.

[samstave]

> Outside of games, there has been no killer Facebook app

The NSA would like to disagree....

[return0]

Facebook insistently tried and failed to help "serious" non-game apps before. I don't understand what's the problem with games and why they don't capitalize on it (they should have bought zynga). Facebook is too crowded for anything more serious than gossip.