That was a unique insight in modeling social networks that is starting to be adopted by other services as well, which in my opinion is a good thing. A conversation between Andrew Chen and Tim O’Reilly ocured on Twitter over just this issue:

Andrew Chen:

@timoreilly re:twitter, Networks are “friends only” or “strangers too” Friends only = less network effect. Twitter=friends+strangers though?

Tim O’Reilly:

@andrew_chen friends + strangers definitely the stronger model. web, twitter have this in spades.

Kevin Marks joins in on the conversation, noting:

its not so much friends vs strangers as not forcing reciprocity. “following” is a good way to express it

I agree with Marks’ sentiment. There are implications to how terms are used to describe social interactions online, and “following” is an apt term.

Terms that imply a bi-directional relationship, such as friend, family, or colleague, need to be confirmed by the individuals on both sides of the relation. However, one way relationships are equally useful, especially in “broadcast” scenarios that occur in public.

It is perfectly reasonable for two strangers to both follow and be followed by each other. Each arc remains one way, however, and the people remain strangers, despite the mutual interest in what each other is publishing.

I suspect some of the confusion stems from trying to compare Facebook with Twitter. That’s like comparing apples to oranges however, because Facebook is a private social network whereas Twitter is a public social network. That distinction is where the line is clearly drawn between friends and strangers.

Facebook Platform enables third-party companies and people to build applications that integrate directly into Facebook. It is a forward-thinking move that allows an unprecedented level of access into the technology that powers Facebook. In contrast, competitors such as MySpace maintain a tight lock, restricting what developers can build.

Zuckerberg is quoted as saying “we want to make Facebook into something of an operating system.” In many of the same ways that an OS provides file system and windowing APIs, Facebook is providing services such as the profile, dashboard, and news feed. These all leverage the “social graph” composed of the connections made to friends and family on Facebook.

Some people are critical of Facebook’s motives, claiming that they are creating a closed platform. They point out that any application built to run on the Facebook Platform could just as well be built to be run on the wider web.

While this is true, Facebook has already achieved a critical mass of users, and are now providing a set of components expected in social applications. Developers can build on top of these features, taking advantage of existing infrastructure.

This is a bold and exciting direction that Facebook has taken. As a developer, Facebook Platform looks very impressive. It will be interesting to watch as innovative new applications are developed and launched on Facebook.