Facebook (aka Crackbook) is just web Visual Basic

According to Dave McClure anyway.

Master of 500 Hats: Kottke is wrong — Facebook isn’t AOL; it’s Visual Basic.

It’s really astonishing how much opportunity the big 3 GYM had to do something truly innovative, how many assets & properties & APIs they had to turn into great platforms, how many brilliant geeks & architects & programmers could have laid out a BIG VISION — and yet how PATHETICALLY & AWFULLY they missed the mark & overlooked the biggest potential for the IntarWeb since Clarke & Andreesen birthed Mosaic.

Have to admit that I’m unhealthily addicted to facebook at the moment (though it is raising some privacy related self realisations - will write more in the next post) and it’s like it’s hit some sort of critical mass in the past few weeks judging by how many of my friends in different countries have signed up completely independently.

The ease of the facebook app system for the end user is brilliant and why the experience is just so much catchier than when I registered for a mySpace and then just got totally bored in about two minutes.

But while those apps are confined to operating within facebook it will always be limited. It’s not an OS nor a browser and who would want it to be? Do I want to do my essay writing in facebook? No way.

It may well change but pure page space is another big contraint, I’ve already run out of room on my homepage (and if it’s not linked off that then it loses most of its point) for any more apps - if I add one another has to go (or should go anyway - it’s already looking like Paradise Lost).

Quite importantly, is also the addictive nature of facebook. I’ve been calling it Crackbook because it’s almost impossible at the moment to not check to see if there have been any updates. I’m checking it more than my email and that is scary. Like I switch off any sort of instant messaging when I’m trying to be productive - I’ll switch off facebook. I don’t need my crucial app running off it and creating all that temptation.

I think far more promising is Google Gears to developing apps on web.