where to even begin….

On a macro note I think this is the beginning of Facebook really really coming into focus on whatever it is ultimately going to become. Attempting to tackle the semantic web is huge and they are taking a very unique and untried approach. There team is waaay smart and they obviously get the web.

On a micro note my suspicion is that the simple gesture of “liking” something will be really natural and nonchalant. I already “like” things often in Google Buzz. I haven’t looked too closely at the API but there were emails going around today on the HTML5 working group mailing list mentioning that it is based on RDFa. I superficially understand RDF (subject-object-predicate expressions. lame examples: Carlos is 29 or Carlos Cardona has the initials CC). I think I got off point..

On the flip side there are the usual privacy concerns. From what I understand the Open Graph is opt-out. So we will see what unfolds there.

Also I thought it was interesting how Bret Taylor, the engineer who came to facebook with the friendfeed acquisition, played such an important role in the keynote and afterward press session. It seemed like he was #2, which surprised me.

Finally, for a brief moment I wondered if this company wasn’t going to be as big as google in 5 years. Which of course is the cliche and meme going around the web today, but I really did ask myself that.

But I kinda forsee one problem. The link that google reverse engineered, the <a href=”">hyperlink</a>, is fundamental to the web. It’s just natural to link from one document to another, hence the web’s creation, growth, ubitquity, etc. The current web is overwhelmingly a link economy. I don’t know that “liking” things will be as natural or ubiquitous as a hyperlink. It’s not that I doubt that it can be. It’s just that I don’t know if it will have the pervasiveness of <a href=”"></a>.

Double finally, I don’t think it’s a great idea that only one company has control of the semantic web. OpenLike much?

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