Facebook has recently announced it will opens its status API, which will enable him to compete with Twitter.
"Tonight Facebook has made a number of updates to the Facebook platform one of which is the opening of status updates. In order to get Facebook statuses, you no longer need to use a session ID to access statuses. This is a huge update and one that I think is going to take Facebook to the next level. There are additional updates listed in the Facebook blog post:
Specifically, your applications can now directly access all of a user’s status, links, and notes via new methods and FQL calls. Your application will have access to any status, notes, or links from the active user or their friends that are currently visible to the active user. In addition, we’re opening new APIs for you to post links, create notes, or upload videos for the current user, and we’ve made setting a user’s status easier."
I believe this is a bad news for Twitter. Indeed, Facebook owns a greater community than Twitter, which counts 150 million users in the world, and therefore have more opportunities to develop. Also, let's not forget than Twitter have shown some technical problems many times, which actually bugged me for a while. Twitter still owns the leadership as they have created the concept and was able to create a great buzz around it, but Facebook has a bigger brand and legitimacy on the web. That will be interesting to see if Facebook is actually able to catch up.
The only problem I can see in this announce is that it might raise up the privacy concerns Facebook already had. Now anyone can now what you and your friends are doing... This is going a step forward, which is actually scary.
As Facebook is celebrating its 5th birthday, it shows they are eager to expand, and to challenge other web 2.0 actors.
What do you think about it? Does Facebook has a chance to challenge Twitter?
