• AllFacebook, Monday, January 28, 2008 11 AM

Facebook is extending its influence across the Web in a big way, by today allowing developers to create third-party programs outside of Facebook that tap into the company's social data pool. Apps developed using Facebook's API can now access the social network's features and its so-called "social graph" of user information from outside the site.

Silicon Alley Insider's (link: http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/01/another-brilliant-facebook-move-really-opens-platform-to-web.html) Henry Blodget says the "small but important step" underlines Facebook's goal of becoming more like an operating system that links Web programs together through the social graph.

That said, Facebook still is not completely open, as users still have to go to the site to interact with friends and software made specifically for the site.

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