Facebook opens platform to other social networks

Online social network site Facebook has opened up its developer platform to other social networking sites, with rival site Bebo the first major rival to implement the platform.

The move comes in response to criticism that developerswouldn't create applications for Facebook because the websiteis too "closed" to be an effective market, and sets up a potential clash between Facebook's now open platform and OpenSocial, the open development platform initiative Google Inc. launched in November.

Facebook senior platform manager Ami Vora first posted the news in a blog entry on Wednesday.

"(We) want to share the benefits of our work by enabling other social sites to use our platform architecture as a model," he wrote.

"In fact, we'll even license the Facebook platform methods and tags to other platforms."

Facebook has been steadily growing in popularity since the site became available to all users in 2006, and now ranks as one of the most popular sites on the web. The site claims it has more than 58 million active members,more than seven million of themin Canada.

Part of what has spurred the growth was the site's decision earlier to open its platform to developers so they could create unique programs for the site, programs that allow users to share messages, quizzes, photos, or other media.

But the criticism of Facebook was that these applications only worked on Facebook. The company said it hopes the move to open its developer platform code will encourage even further adoption.

"By enabling other social sites to use what we've learned, everyone wins users get a better experience around the web, developers get access to new audiences, and social sites get more applications," the company said in an official statement on Wednesday.

In a surprise move on Wednesday, San Francisco-based social networking site Bebo became the first to implement the Facebook platform standards. Bebo, which has more than 40 million users worldwide, said it has signed partnership deals with more than 40 application developers.

The decision to adopt the Facebook platform is an interesting one for Bebo, because the site is also committed to integrating with Google's OpenSocial in 2008. The company said it plans to be the first site to adopt both standards.

Google's OpenSocial attracted interest from a number of prominent social networking sites, including News Corp.-owned MySpace, as well as Friendster, hi5 andLinkedIn.