Agile Ajax

Mashups versus Facebook

Dietrich Kappe, Thursday, July 5, 2007 @ 6:02 am

I've been playing around with the Facebook API over the last few weeks. There's only a very limited Ajax capability in the API -- they call it "Mock Ajax" -- that allows you to sub some very restricted HTML into the innerHTML of DOM elements. No Javascript. You'll have to use inline CSS if you want to achieve a cool user experience.

While it is possible to display Facebook content in your own apps, it is pretty restricted (you'll have to read at least three legal docs to figure all that out). Not much leverage for mashups here. In a sense this is the mirror opposite of a mashup. Instead of mashing together services provided by third party, you develop a service that is mashed into the Facebook platform.

Part of the promise of Ajax was that you could mash together third party services quickly and comparatively easily. While widgets and services have made their mark (Yahoo, Flickr, Google Maps to name just a few), there is also a trend toward restricting their use. See the discontinuation of the Google SOAP Search API and the heavy restrictions on the new Google Ajax Search API. Right now my money is on the Facebook model winning out over the Mashup model.

BTW, in exploring the Facebook API, I experienced a flashback to the late 90's and the whole portal fad. The API's and patterns reminded me more than a little bit of Plumtree and Epicentric (great portal platform before it was absorbed into the craptastic Vignette). What's old is new again, just like bell bottoms and mood rings. Just don't call facebook a portal.

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Comments: 2 so far

  1. A true facebook widget is written in actionscript. That’s the only way to get to their apis from the client. Javascript would cause too many security issues. The Facebook markup language (FMBL) makes it seem that they support various languages like C# .net etc, but it does nothing but add complexity to a system that has only one true way to build a dynamic widget.

    Comment by Rainhut, Friday, September 7, 2007 @ 11:44 pm

  2. Check out the Stagegold video player as an example of a true widget on facebook.

    Comment by Rainhut, Friday, September 7, 2007 @ 11:47 pm

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