Why is Facebook pruning apps, courting older users, and increasing privacy options?
Better users. Or at least better paying ones.

Michael Arrington’s post both highlighting and lamenting Facebook Chat   demonstrates a secondary function of Chat- it helps reinforce the social graph.
In his post, Arrington complains that his 5000 “friends” make Facebook Chat unmanageable. While it may not be the point of the service, we’ll guess Facebook isn’t disappointed. Facebook has always been about real connections, [...]

This week, Tablet Hotels is releasing the Global Nomad Challenge.
They’re a client- but there are more interesting reasons to talk about them than that.
First, it’s an exciting application. Users can win stays in  amazing luxury hotels, or great coffee table books about some of the best places in the world. We’re excited about that as [...]

On numerous tech blogs, pundits have worried that Facebook would lose its market leading position to web-wide services like FriendFeed.
Now, Facebook is opening up the mini-feed to third party sites.  The result? Don’t look for FriendFeed to take away Facebook’s marketshare yet.

Facebook’s announcement of an application permissions API probably doesn’t mean a lot. At this stage, few applications are robust enough to need interoperability.
RockYou and Slide’s “Walls”, however, are notable exceptions. RockYou released a wall API early on in platform. With a universal permissions API, it’s easier to make sure big players don’t get big advantages. [...]

What does Facebook’s new chat client mean for apps?
Superficially, of course,  it means that third party clients will be pushed out of the way.
The long term effects are different. Undoubtedly, Facebook is trying to increase the already massive engagement and time spent on the site. Chat will do that.
Apps benefit from time spent on Facebook. [...]

Nick O’Neill posts about Facebook’s elimination of the network tab. What does it mean?
Practically, it means more available real estate. It’s tough to discern the big picture, since networks still exist. But the absence of a “browse” feature gives users a bigger clue- networks aren’t going to be for networking, any more.
Instead, other features will [...]