Facebook takes aim at Google with Open Graph

gallery

Facebook has revealed its plans for the future, introducing changes to its platform that will see the social networking site integrated into other websites - and let users share and edit Microsoft documents online.

Speaking at Facebook's f8 conference, founder Mark Zuckerberg said the change was the next step from Connect - which lets users use their Facebook login across other websites - and was “the most transformative thing we’ve ever done for the web.”

He said that the web was currently made up of "unstructured links between pages." Facebook's new goal is to create an Open Graph, which Zuckerberg described as a "personally, and semantically, set of meaningful connections between people and things."

Noting that such connections already happen on Facebook as well as across the web, he said: "And today, with the Open Graph, we're going to bring all of these things together."

Essentially, users will be able to connect with sites outside of Facebook, and those sites will be able to use data from Facebook to offer a more personalised experience.

Zuckerberg used review site Yelp as an example - if it knows the city you live in, it can recommend local businesses. News sites will have a "Like" button that lets users share links with their friends on Facebook and see which of their friends liked the story, without that data being shared with the news site itself.

Microsoft connection

Aside from Yelp and music site Pandora, Facebook has also teamed up with Microsoft, which has a stake in the social networking site.

The docs.com system lets Facebook users create and share Microsoft documents online - a move that sets the firms squarely against Google and its Docs offerings.

Zuckerberg said: "It's all of the power of Microsoft's Office Suite online, with simple Facebook integration."

The docs.com system is still in beta, and clicking on the existing documents brings up a message saying the "service is unavailable".

Email to a friend

Print this page