Over the last week, I have been reading about, observing and attempting to use the new third party applications now offered by Facebook, developed in an obvious attempt to compete for users and relevance with MySpace and ultimately position Facebook as a super platform and one-stop shop for all of your social software needs. While some of the applications simply mimic functionality that has been afforded to MySpace users for a long time, such as top eight friends, slideshows, html decorating, adding music to your profile and video skins, many of the new applications extend or incorporate functionality from other already widely used services such as del.icio.us, twitter, YouTube, digg, veoh, radar and netflix. Still others are cute little add-ons that allow users to waste even more time, my personal favorites so far are the trips application, locations application and the graffiti on your wall option. Facebook has even attempted to become more socially relevant by adding various political applications, like the one for Obama, and a Causes application that allows users to add causes they support and donate money to them (damn, they stole my idea). While the decision to open up their software to third party applications was a smart move, as opposed to the MySpace strategy of buying up sites like photobucket to make them more proprietary, the question still remains, will this give Facebook the edge to seriously compete against the social networking giant and, more importantly, does the added functionality make Facebook more relevant and situate them as the first real super platform? Certainly the buzz about the new applications has and will continue to increase Facebook’s user base initially, and it has undoubtedly excited those users who already have made Facebook their main social networking platform, but will the buzz continue past the initial stage of discovery?

As someone who previously never really used Facebook, I have found myself signing on a lot more since the applications were released. But my initial distaste for the site has made me skeptical about their overall mission to become a super platform. Sure many of the applications are cool and, setting aside the small amounts of trouble I had using some of them which is to be expected in the first few weeks of launching any new feature, I think that a few of them could actually be useful. But I wonder if the ones that most people are adding are in fact those that simply make their Facebook look more like MySpace. I also wonder if the inclusion of so many third party sites that already have successful platforms of their own is actually helpful, or just increases the noise that one must filter through when signing on. Is it really helpful to add del.icio.us to my profile when I am already very comfortable with the user-interface of the del.icio.us site, as an example? The fact that these applications are add-ons and not actually fully integrated into Facebook is part of the problem. Facebook is still built on the traditional social networking structure; find friends, upload pictures, post comments about your friends etc. This is not to say that this structure is not a popular one. However, I have my own personal doubts about how long this kind of structure will be interesting, particularly among older users. The inclusion of so many different ways to communicate or stream your life on the site does temporarily quench the boredom that I think many MySpace users have begun to feel for instance. But I am not convinced that this structure makes it easier to find out what your friends are doing or find and view all the relevant information your friends are posting elsewhere, particularly for me when they have (for obvious reasons) not included access to my favorite site flickr. (yes, not a big deal, but it still bothers me)

I am also not convinced that the new socially relevant applications will work well in this environment. It is hard enough to get people honestly interested in a particular cause, especially when desired interest is equal to more than a mouse click. As an example, there are 27 thousand members of the Global Warming because I recently added but only $386 dollars in donations. Money, however, is not the only important thing. People need to truly feel like part of a group in order for simple acknowledgement of theoretical support can actually translate into social action. There has also already been the suggestion on the causes comment section that the entire app may in fact be a scam. While I personally don’t think it is, I think this remark suggests that the prefabricated structure, which doesn’t seem to allow users to add their own causes (in the way change.org does), is not really allowing people to actually feel like part of a community working towards a goal. Short of giving money, there seems to be no way to communicate or interact with members of your particular cause. Still, I suppose you can’t blame Facebook for trying.

All in all, I think the addition of the new functionality was a wise competitive decision, but I don’t think it will make Facebook a super platform. It may in fact be true that people want all of their social software needs to be met in one place. I admit that I too am sick of joining so many sites, and remembering my various passwords. But what I have found is that I generally check out everything and then only really use what works for me, something that is usually defined by whether my friends are there, how interesting and useful the site is or whether or not it is fun. Governed by this rule, MySpace, flickr, del.icio.us and iminlikewithyou have won out thus far and, despite the fact that I subscribe to a lot of other services, none of the others have been able to sustain my interest. In addition, I find that, as we all do in the real world, I communicate differently and am represented differently depending on what platform I am using. For instance, I rarely send messages on flickr, rarely comment on photos on MySpace and probably wouldn’t bookmark a stupid cartoon or picture on del.icio.us unless it was really funny. I also don’t know that I would want the same people viewing my LinkedIn to see my MySpace and I think it would be very weird if every stalker friend requesting me on MySpace or flirting with me on iminlikewithyou could have instant access to my flickr. But then again, maybe I’m just old. Ultimately, however, regardless of the different ways we may use different platforms, I think for those who really want it (and I’m sure a lot of people do), the concept of life streaming and the aggregation of information will be best served at a place similar to Wink, which provides third party access to all the places you and your information are, and not through the inclusion of third party services on an already populated and established platform like Facebook. But who knows, I could be wrong.