Facebook to Allow Outside Widgets?

Posted on April 17, 2007

Wired's Listening Post is reporting that the popular social networking website Facebook is going to open up and allow outside widgets onto people's Facebook profiles.

A trusted source tells me that the online social networking site Facebook plans to open its tightly controlled site to outside widgets, allowing users to embed outside audio, video, and other content onto their profile pages for the first time. Ironically, this move comes just as MySpace tightens up its widget policies, meaning that the two sites could come to resemble each other a lot more than they do now.

If this happens it would be a big opportunity for widget providers to get their widgets in Facebook. MySpace started with open doors and has been getting more restrictive on widgets and third-party hosting services. The latest incident was MySpace's blocking of Photobucket's videos. If the widget news is true it would also be a big step in Facebook's apparent move toward becoming more and more like the other social networks. That move began last year when Facebook opened its virtual doors to more faces -- not just high school and college students and alumni.