The Facebook Platform

There's really not a whole lot of interesting news today. The best thing for me to talk about is actually the Facebook API that was opened up in the middle of my little hiatus. Facebook applications, more like widgets, started popping up like mosquitoes on a humid Texas night based on this API. I never really said much about it, but I really like this blogger's analysis of the situation. I think he exaggerates in saying that it's a giant leap forward for the Internet industry, because I don't think that Facebook is that big of a deal, but fortunately he lists plenty of problems to compensate. I, for one, think that it's a double edged sword. On one hand, it's great that they've opened up and people can do almost whatever they want within the Facebook platform, including make money, and it's basically free labor to the Facebook team. They get all this extra functionality at no cost to them other than the processing power required as being a proxy. However, I think that this is just one more push that's making Facebook too complicated. True, it's a totally optional addition for you, but when it shows up on your friends' news feeds and then they invite you to install these things and all that crap, it becomes quite a bit. Plus, everyone's profiles are bound to get pretty cluttered very soon. And if an application breaks, it'll look bad on Facebook even though a third-party made it. Worse off yet are third-parties like iLike whose servers died because developers have to host their own code. Does all this mean that it was a bad move for Facebook? Not necessarily. It may need to be tweaked a bit, like they may want to support the ones that do really well, but I think it's better for them to be open than to be closed off.

There's plenty of Apple news hanging around in the aftermath of WWDC, and I'm going to shave it down to the things that you'll actually care about. The iPhone will not support the Adobe Flash Player, which I simply don't get. Is there some serious security hole that would kill the iPhone? Or did they just not have time to support it?

The bigger issue though is the issue I mentioned yesterday about not providing an SDK. You can see one example application over here that doesn't require an iPhone SDK to work, but it does need Safari. I don't have Safari so I can't use it, but maybe you can. If you're a stubborn Windows user like me, you can see what we're missing out on over here. They definitely strove to preserve that Mac look and feel, which is good and bad, but still doesn't attract me to download it. Anyway, if my little rant yesterday about the lacking SDK wasn't enough, then Gizmodo has even more to say about how it means that the iPhone is craptacular unless Apple does some really amazing stuff with it since the third party applications people were dreaming up can't happen, and that's sort of a buzzkill (but not totally, in my opinion).

Google has quietly rolled out a way to view PowerPoint presentations from within Gmail without having to have Microsoft Office installed. I don't really have any powerpoints in my Gmail to try it out on, but I'm sure that'll come in handy when school starts again.

If you want to see more pretty web pages, check out Zen Garden's top 15 CSS designs. Very worthwhile, and very cool, creative stuff out there. I wish I was that good at making nifty layouts!

That's the first look we have at Saw 4, which has started its marketing hot on the heels of the DVD release of Saw 3, apparently. That's probably better than our first look at the Hitman movie, which is just the back of Timothy Olyphant's head.

There are a number of reviews out there for Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer already, but it seems to be a mixed bag. Anyway, here are a couple more to whet your whistle.

I, personally, don't watch Battlestar Galactica, but I can appreciate that it's probably a phenomenal series. As such, I felt it was noteworthy that it may be getting a film. There seems to be interest for it, so we'll have to see what happens.

Lastly, a couple more of clips for Die Hard 4 went up on Yahoo Movies.

Now for the Tuesday Twosome:

Two Immediate Reactions

1. When you are lied to?
hurt and offended
2. When you make a mistake?
regretful and apologetic
3. When you embarrass yourself in public?
shame and to run away
4. When you see someone make a fool of themselves?
feel bad for them and look away
5. When you realize you have hurt someone (emotionally)?
apologetic and scared