…..well kind of.

At least that’s what Marty Wells says.  He certainly has the rap down pat and explains succinctly the inner politics and issues in this chess game.  The key to his argument is that MySpace missed the boat and Facebook now has the leadership mantle by the horns.

He’s correct but I think he’s only looking five chess moves out.

It goes on from there.

Facebook opening up their APIs is just the first volley in an on-going war of open vs closed.  The new dapper service - just announced - is another weapon we’ll be able to use in this war - as well as information being gathered on Google’s new GData strategy.

Like some sort of Web 2.0 Mata Hari - we’re all figuring out what’s going along - and we’re spreading the news to each other accordingly. The blogosphere provides us built-in focus groups, market research effortds and now - strategic analysis as well. 

How else are we supposed ot keep up with teh goings on - of the Live Web?

If I was a betting man (which I’m not) I’d say that Facebook’s openness will not lock us into anything, but in fact encourage OTHERS to open up as well - in new a different ways.  I bet that by this X-Mas we’ll see five other MAJOR opening ups (if that’s a word.)

But Marty is right - Facebook will establish a new litmus - a frist stab at what these APIs should look like.

It’s our (BBM) plan to support, study and adapt these first efforts and evolve them into open standards for all.  With our friends at the Citizen Agency helping us along the way.

Thanks Chris for the pointer to Marty’s excellent rant!

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