SXSW: Facebook Garage Live Blogging

Today at SXSW, Facebook is holding a Developer Garage. I am doing live blogging and so keep refreshing this page to get the latest and I will note once the event has concluded. The newest is at the bottom. Robert Scoble has live video as well. Event concluded.

Updat: CNET’s Caroline McCarthy and Valleywag’s Owen Thomas have additional commentary on the garage.

Mark Zuckerberg

• We are allowing people to map out who their friends are and then we want people to communicate more effectively with our services and your services built on facebook.com – the wall is a social app – the first thing we focused on doing with platform – is exposing the core
• MySpace vs. Facebook – we don’t view ourselves as a media portal like myspace does – we aren’t looking to increase the time spent on site – we are more like Google – get in and get out. We don’t even measure it.
• Average number of friends on facebook is 150
• He plays Scrabble with my grandparents on Facebook
• We are working on more granular privacy control and groups
• We don’t know what will be successful – there are some things in facebook’s DNA that we won’t go after
• Asked whether if another 25 million network does x or y related to data portability, will Facebook do the same. Zuckerberg: No and explains that it might not be the right way to go – but they are working on data portability.
• What is your viewpoint on sharing data with the government both US and other govts? We aren’t openly working with any govt but we have to follow the law. In other countries we are careful not to approach things that cause user issues. He speaks about the difficulties with moving into China.
• What about Parakey and why did you acquire them? What they are doing seemed very interesting and their concepts and we are really interested in bringing as many smart people into Facebook as possible.
• Scoble explains the situation with ScobleGate and asks Mark for his reaction. Mark – he speaks about the ability to keep information inside and things like rss pushing out and it’s nearly impossible to keep things consistent. Also explains the appeals process used.
• Speaks about how they use the U.S. country lists and don’t create their own currently.

Update on Facebook

• Frictionless platform = security top priority
• New FB profile coming in March – really enables the user to communicate what’s going on with them
• Creating a better reputation system for applications – especially with spam
• Photos app has over 4 billion photos
• Platform future – goal is to build long-term value and enabling viral distribution of apps to the 65 million users
• Marketplace launch to connect developers with brands
• Working on language translation
• Working on payment system

Discussion about fbFund

• same as the initial launch at TC40 – no equity but you give them first right of refusal for any needed funding.
• They are working towards making it more efficient than it is today
• They are very excited about the possibilities in helping connect developers with VC funds

Jason Hoffman – Joyent

• very technical — nothing to take notes on frankly
• it’s a lot of selling

Tyler Ballance From Slide

• Explains the differences between running applications on Bebo vs. Facebook – top friends is identical
• Runs Python
• Does some trickery to figure out whether its Facebook or Bebo
• Tyler says you should be looking into preload FQL, FBJS and the Data Store API
• Important to brand the applications so users know which apps belong to which brands — believes most apps aren’t doing a good job in this area
• THey are hiring smart people with no experience

Sam Lessin and Darshan Somashekar – Drop.io

• check our coverage for the full explanation
• About sharing things without being public
• Drop.io makes privacy simple – they just move content around efficiently
• They are building a private news feed – keeping private media private
• To make this app works, it requires it to be simple