Why Facebook is the “it” company of 2007

Fastcompany has a great recent article on Facebook being the “it” company of 2007. The article contends that their growth has been fueled by the thousands of applications being developed on their platform. I’ve been wondering if the apps themselves have caused the growth, or if it’s just the press around the app platform itself. Well, I think it’s both, and here are the four quotes that perfectly sum it up:

Facebook isn’t selfish:

The rub for Facebook: The company itself won’t make a dime from the sheep-throwing business. Or, in fact, from any of what could turn out to be hundreds or even thousands of other wildly successful new applications now running on its site. And for some reason, Zuckerberg says that’s just fine with him, claiming, “It’s good for the ecosystem, good for the product, and good for the users.”

Facebook understood the power of an open platform:

It was Zuckerberg who insisted that Facebook open up to outside developers this year. “We want a system where anyone can develop without having our permission,” he says. “There are things that we will never think of, or get around to, that would really make the user experience better.” The result has been a flood of free software that has hyperfueled Facebook’s growth.

Facebook discovered the power of the News Feed:

The primary accelerant is a Facebook feature called News Feed, which automatically shares information across friend networks and groups. As a result, “News Feed optimization,” the art and science of writing a compelling News Feed announcement, has become an industry itself. “News Feed is as important to Facebook as AdWords or AdSense is to Google,” says entrepreneur and blogger Dave McClure, who is teaching the Stanford course.

The right app brings in those who wouldn’t normally use Facebook:

Zuckerberg is enjoying apps like Scrabulous, which lets users play Scrabble together. Created in a week by two brothers from India, it caught on like wildfire, with half a million users signing up in the first 10 weeks. Zuckerberg was one of them. “It got my grandparents on Facebook,” he says, smiling. “They like playing with me.”