Q&A: Cat Lee, Facebook platform manager

We discuss Facebook apps and their possible use in the business world, as well as how constant innovation sometimes clashes with what users want.

By Asavin Wattanajantra, 1 Oct 2009 at 12:42

gallery

What kind of business websites can benefit from this?

Any site that wants to grow its user base outside of its own locale. Normally travel websites, but also anything culturally related- restaurants perhaps. Businesses that can benefit from having an audience in different countries.

Some observers have felt that Facebook is getting more ‘Twitter-like’ with real-time streaming. Although Facebook claims that this is the way the web is going, some users weren’t and are still not particularly happy with it.

Facebook didn’t really give users a choice with this change. Why was this?

I think it was mainly because of simplicity and scale. In terms of our company values we are constantly innovating and do what we believe is in the best interest of our users. But I also think as a company we have to continue to scale, and obviously supporting two experiences is very, very difficult for us to do.

With the platform and Connect we want to give users the experiences that are best for them. We want to allow users to create the tools to create unique experiences.

We constantly innovate and try new things. We are constantly trying to balance what users want, what developers want, what advertisers want, in a way that we think is beneficial for most users.