Facebook's growing pains

A year ago, when the social networking site Facebook to open to software developers when it looks like Silicon Valley's hottest young star.

This site really has become a paradise for developers. Programmers are free to play, and create all kinds of different things, both of no practical use the settings just for fun, but also to help find a friend like a very useful function. In this process, Facebook's user base began to rapidly expand. Young people in Silicon Valley social networking site has become an important topic. Microsoft (MSFT) to its investment, even Google (GOOG) is also jealous of it can not enjoy the degree of concern.

However, time in the past year, the situation has undergone tremendous changes. Wednesday, Facebook has accelerated action at his own workshop proposed a large development, and site of major repair, this time, they have begun to feel the growing pains. I also think, Facebook as a topic in Silicon Valley, its charm has faded a lot. Some people even believe that the theoretical value of the company - once raised to 15 billion U.S. dollars - has declined sharply.

Now, Facebook or even be with the Apple (AAPL) launched a positive confrontation, as the latter a new, faster 3G iPhone has become the new darling of the software developers. Some people clearly see a better way to make money - even if Apple charges for a number of mobile applications is very low, the user as little as 99 cents to 1.99 U.S. dollars, you can download it to the iPhone - after all, the application of Facebook Most programs are free.

"In Silicon Valley, for the Facebook obsession has reached a peak last year." OffBeatGuides.com San Francisco start-up company's founder and CEO Sfogli (Dave Sifry) says.

Frankly, I know some of the data so far has seemed to tell another story, at least I feel so confused. Facebook seems to have started a can not stop rolling. data provided by comScore, in April, the number of unique visitors in the world on to a slight advantage over News Corp. (NWS) of MySpace, has become the world's largest social networking site. Between May, Facebook's lead even further, and the month has 100 million 23.8 million unique visitors, more than MySpace's 100 million 14.6 million, which flows down slightly compared to the previous month.

Precisely one of the company's troubles also here. Web site architecture itself is not particularly suitable for the rapid traffic growth and the rapid growth of applications, more terrible is that there are a number of these procedures is toxic, making the problem further complicated.

"I have already pointed out a series of operational problems, including the response delay, the page can not be downloaded, etc. This essentially is the speed of response to the problem." Gartner analyst Valdez (Ray Valdes), said, "For social networking sites, This is actually a holistic distress, when they experience rapid growth, they have to constantly re-write their own software. "

Of course, Facebook, after all, resisted enormous pressure to survive, but the speed is really slow growing, and recently they form a new round of debt financing, they plan to utilize these funds for infrastructure construction.

The company recently strengthened a number of means of control, making the application more difficult to spread among friends, for the site, this actually means that the processing tasks become more onerous. Previously, if users have installed the application of toxic and its friends will receive an email, telling them what the person installing the application. Valdes noted that the application of these toxic actually created some illusion of growth figures, he suggested that Facebook as soon as possible to solve this problem.

"They have realized that he opened the door too big." Valdes said, "They give software developers the freedom too much, have an adverse impact on users."

At the same time, Facebook has begun a series of action allow developers to feel distressed. For example, they copied the Slide's Top Friends application of some functions, which will undoubtedly lead to Apple and Microsoft some concern. Slide popular they are both annoying in its application is known, they are also services for the iPhone.

From Palo Alto start-up company Mohan (Mukund Mohan) said, "Everyone can now hope to provide iPhone application."

Bay Partners Partner Daisipande (Salil Deshpande) in its App Factory Fund provides financing for the development of Facebook. He said that if the company want to become a development platform for social networking sites, like the computer or operating system, as they must in accordance with the platform's approach to acting.

"This is easier said than done." Daisipande said, "such as Microsoft, Apple and Sun are also so many years after the company learned the correct way before."

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (Steve Ballmer) long ago pointed out that many social networking companies have only a passing fad, and in fact, companies such as Friendster and Tribe's history confirmed his judgments. Last year, Facebook is clearly one of the hottest topics, but this year, they share some of the eye may have been gradually taken away by Twitter and FriendFeed, not to mention from industry competitors outside the iPhone.

Facebook of course, will not quickly die. Jamies (Sudha Jamthe) and organized a group of volunteers with Bay Area Facebook Developer Meetup, he believed that Facebook still has magic. "They give developers the excitement and stimulation remain."

Facebook still has the potential to become a successful example of the financial markets, and perhaps their IPO will be the wake-up sluggish IPO market strong medicine instead. Just wanted to let application developers and users back to their side, keep your makeup alone is clearly not enough.







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