David Recordon (of Facebook) sent over his session title this morning. Now, I think we all kind of figured that David would be addressing Facebook’s Open Graph stuff, but it’s nice to get “official confirmation” from him on that front. I commented on Dave Linthicum’s podcast this week that I was a bit unsure of how I felt about what Facebook is doing. Is Facebook just another walled garden? Kinda. Is the Open Graph stuff crossing some Open Web lines? Maybe. Am I filled with zealotry and vitriol over it? Eh – I’m too old for zealotry.
That said, there is a *serious* discussion to be had about the implications of what Facebook is up to. As Mitch Kapor reminded the Glue audience last year, you cannot assume that the internet simply HAD to turn out the way it did (ie, taking some Darwinian “purpose filled” evolutionary approach — yes, Darwin thought evolution had purpose, but I digress — is just silly with regards to the Internet).
The discussion takes place in a larger context: “I thought Glue was about the Cloud. Why are you talking about Facebook?”
Ah yes – good point. As I also said on Dave’s podcast, Glue is about the idea that the enterprise developer and the web (”consumer-facing”) developer are not separate skill sets over the next 5 year timeframe. The protocols and APIs that the web developer uses/knows (Facebook, Twitter, Activity Streams, OAuth, etc) will become the kinds of things the enterprise developer uses/knows (and vice versa). And all of THAT happens in the cloud. It’s why we speak of Glue as being about developing in *and* for the cloud. Putting experts on hybrid cloud architecture in the same space as the guy building out Facebook’s Open Graph protocol will yield one hell of an interesting discussion. One that you cannot (and will not) have at either a “cloud computing” event or a “web developer” event — but one that you WILL have at Glue.
I hope you’ll join us.
