I’ve had a love hate relationship with facebook since I started using it. I deleted my facebook account twice due to being irritated by a few people sending application invitations and a few other random reasons. Each time I deleted my account, I realized what I was missing out on in terms of staying in touch with certain people and the endless networking and collaborative opportunities facebook offers, so I’m back once again.
The news of the facebook developer’s garage which recently(30-10-07) took place in Cape Town has made me think a little further about the possibilities which lie in the facebook platform and community. All these plugins and extensions, linking up with other online applications and services and people developing any and every type of functionality imaginable, most of which I think is a bunch of nonsense though others seem to be making use of it from vampire bites to fluffy gifts etc.
An area where I think facebook should allow more play and developers should be focusing their attention is customization. Now I know the blue bar at the top and the standard layout has become somewhat familiar and that’s fine for most, but I think it’s about time we were allowed to play a bit with our personal spaces, brand them, colour them, change layout a little more and give them a bit more of a stamp of individuality. It should make no difference to the owners of facebook, as long a their ad spaces are maintained in their places what the rest of the thing looks like.
I’d go out there as saying that this could be one of the most significant changes that could be included into the platform. I mean, it’s about us, about the individuals, their uniqueness. If i had even half the development skills needed to get stuck in on this area I’d dive in, any takers?
What do you guys think?