Facebook Pours Out API Legos for Status, Notes, Video, Links

First, the news in case you haven't heard: Facebook has opened the API's for Status, Notes, Posted Items and Video, meaning we'll see a metric ton of outside-of-Facebook integration with these Facebook services.  The walled garden will have several heavy iron grappling hooks attached with ropes dangling for service providers, tools and integrators to scale the walls with ease.

The initial reactions seem to be almost uncontrollably apopolectic with predictions that an open Facebook Status API means death to Twitter ("Facebook Status Opens API, Say Goodbye to Twitter").  Surely an open Status API means a continued increase in the importance of status (validating Twitter's concept) and also opening up the playing field for Facebook Status to become more important to a larger number of platforms.  But don't lose sight of Twitter's own public community momentum- and that it means people will likely be finding new and different ways to still do both, not less of one.  Don't believe the hype there- especially when there's lots more important news in this announcement...

The sleeper hit of this announcement is Notes in my opinion.  From the social meme of "25 Random Things" to confessions, link sharing, re-posts of blogs and more, Notes has been humming in the background of more talkative Facebook users habits for years.  The opening of the Notes API could create an interesting integration with more public blogs, letting the staunch LiveJournal and Blogspot users slickly interface and even privately post between.  I look forward to seeing how Notes gets more robust features beyond the simple text and photo publishing as Facebook integrates video and more (something I'd watch for in 2009).

Video's open API is a big deal, but since it comes on the heels of 2008's embedding video push, it's no great surprise.  Video's role in Facebook Connect also signaled this would likely happen sooner rather than later. 

One minor nugget is that "Posted Items" as a name (always an awkward alternative name, it has always been a part of Facebook's nomenclature) will be changing to "Links" - at least in how Developers interact with it.

It will be up to developers to show us what most of this really will mean, well before anyone declares anything alive or dead.  Right now we're all just sifting through the Legos Facebook just poured onto the table...

-Dean