As if Facebook wasn’t widespread enough already, the popular social networking site has announced a new application for the Apple iPhone, allowing Facebook users to connect with their friends wherever they go. The new application, called “Facebook Connect” is an extension of Facebook’s proprietary platform that runs on all iPhone’s.
For anyone familiar with Facebook, “Facebook Connect” should be a walk in the park to use on your iPhone. You only have to download the application and then login to your Facebook account directly from your iPhone. From there, you can easily locate all of your Facebook friends, and have access to your profile in much the same way you would online.
There are several software developers currently writing applications for the iPhone that will take advantage of Facebook Connect, and according to Apple, several of these programs will allow users to publish directly to Facebook via template-like forms.
Although the idea seems simplicity itself, Facebook says that the Facebook Connect application for the iPhone was actually quite complicated to perfect. Besides replicating the normal Facebook experience, the application also had to take into account Facebook security measures. It also had to be designed in a way that would allow iPhone software developers to create programs to take advantage of the mobile connection to Facebook.
With Facebook now the most popular social networking web site in the United States, the introduction of an iPhone application for the program seems like an obvious choice, and should only serve to increase Facebook’s dominance over competitor Myspace in the social networking arena.
Clearly, Facebook wants to become more than just an online phenomenon. The introduction of Facebook Connect seems like a first step toward expanding the social networking site into the off-line mainstream of society. And Facebook officials have made no secret of the company’s intention to ingratiate themselves into the heart of American society. With that in mind, we can probably expect to see the popular site ported over to other mobile phone services soon, including an application for the Blackberry.
With Facebook now receiving more Web hits than any social networking site in the Western world (there is actually one Chinese social networking site that gets more hits on average per month than Facebook), some say the company now sees them self as “the new Google,” a ubiquitous online “utility” that is used by the overwhelming majority of people worldwide. Whether they’ll be able to fulfill their goal of world social networking domination or not remains to be seen.
