Taking this to its logical conclusion, we'll end up with a facebook browser, a youtube browser, a wikipedia browser and so on.
The great thing about the web is that one program can access the whole thing.
Now you're suggesting it would be cool if I had a browser for every website I visit? No thanks! Not at all! Go away!
It would be a horrifically detrimental trend if websites started producing their own browsers.
It would also be a sign that there's something wrong with the web - that the current standards fail in some major way.
You say that:
> The bigger picture though is that Facebook needs to have a desktop presence that it controls.
Why? You don't say what advantage this would have. You talk about "Facebook to become a part of your browsing experience rather than a just a destination online."
What do you mean by that? Doesn't deep integration between websites and facebook via the like button do that? Isn't that a better way forward for facebook?
For Facebook Apps. You don't think Facebook would just stand by while FarmVille etc. started being sold in the Chrome App Store and the Safari App Store, would you?
I never said it would be cool, I just think it's where I think we're headed.
Facebook make money from apps.
If apps are sold in browser web stores, that's money Facebook are missing out on.
Therefore Facebook need their own browser.
I would say:
Facebook make money from apps.
If apps are sold in browser web stores, that's money Facebook are missing out on.
Therefore Facebook need their own App Development API
which pushes out to all browsers.
But isn't it much more compelling for Facebook to have a development platform which they control and can make as uniform as possible? Big companies tend to want to control the core technology behind their businesses.
A quick and recent example: you can no longer play FarmVille out of the box on a new Macbook Air.
Taking this to its logical conclusion, we'll end up with a facebook browser, a youtube browser, a wikipedia browser and so on.
The great thing about the web is that one program can access the whole thing.
Now you're suggesting it would be cool if I had a browser for every website I visit? No thanks! Not at all! Go away!
It would be a horrifically detrimental trend if websites started producing their own browsers.
It would also be a sign that there's something wrong with the web - that the current standards fail in some major way.
You say that:
> The bigger picture though is that Facebook needs to have a desktop presence that it controls.
Why? You don't say what advantage this would have. You talk about "Facebook to become a part of your browsing experience rather than a just a destination online."
What do you mean by that? Doesn't deep integration between websites and facebook via the like button do that? Isn't that a better way forward for facebook?
Open is the new closed.