2 posts tagged “walled gardens”

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Facebook source code leak - Rebtel blogs!

Aug 13, 2007
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http://www.techcr...

We just received a tip that the source code for the Facebook main index page has been leaked and published on a blog called Facebook Secrets. There are at least two possible ways that the source code got out - the first is that a Facebook developer has sent it out, or the more likely option that ...

A couple of days ago the some of Facebook's source code was leaked. Of course, this is a big story since Facebook has been decisively a closed community when it comes to opening itself to the outside world.

I've been writing about these walled gardens and how they're doomed to cause reactions previously - I think this is just the first to come of "let's open facebook" activities.

Of course we're all very attuned to Facebook news here at Rebtel now, after a couple of months of intensive online presence by me and Björn and now when we've launched our application.

Rebtel people have started blogging about this - check out more by Alex.

Watch out walled gardens?

Jul 2, 2007
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Annes-grove

So, what do you think about walled gardens? These places hidden away from the public view, only accessible by the people who come to fulfill the criteria (be it membership, or living close to them or what). Walled gardens on the internet are the places that doesn't publish content publically... Vox is very much not one of these, however another site I frequent is - Facebook.

I was reading this blog post by Steve Rubel commeting on just this about Facebook, he says amongst other things:

For all of the excitement around Facebook and its application platform, it's essentially a giant walled garden. You can embed virtually anything you want inside Facebook. Just like open APIs, Facebook's developer program lets anyone create value in the ecosystem.

The problem, however, lies in this fact - Facebook gives nothing back to the broader web. A lot of stuff goes in, but nothing comes out. What happens in Facebook, stays in Facebook. As Robert Scoble noted, it's almost completely invisible to Google. You can share only a limited amount of data on your public page - as he has here. That's fine for many users, but not all.

I tend to agree - and for me as a user, one of the main drawbacks - is that I can't take my content with me to the rest of my online social communities, like Vox or Wordpress...