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Facebook made some big announcements this week regarding the future (and future potential) of its platform approach to business. With the release of Open Graph and Social Plugins, Facebook provides deeper integration between its social network and third party websites and developers. The company also updated its existing Graph API for more flexible integration options. Here’s a quick run down of what just happened, what it means, and what the future may hold.

The Basics:

Open Graph-integrating third-party data into Facebook, with deeper and stronger pipes. More complex than Facebook Connect.

Social Plugins-social features from Facebook that can be pushed to participating publishers.

Graph API update-Facebook platform revamp for simpler integration for developers.

What it Means for Facebook:

Building a larger foundation upon which others can access and monetize Facebook’s large social base.

Bold move towards owning the web through social mechanisms and semantic search

Reiterating standards set forth by Facebook’s initial open platform, and Facebook Connect

What it Means for Third Parties:

More options for building out large apps with a focus on revenue-generation

Higher barrier to entry for smaller developers

A necessity for inter-app communication

What it Means for Microsoft:

Ability to compete more directly with Google’s web search efforts

A fatter pipes system for leveraging consumer access and its marketability

Ownership in a self-sustained market for socially-driven applications

What it Means for Users:

Encouraged openness and content-sharing through easier access points and automated features

Economic incentives for linking social accounts with consumer activity

Revised desire for privacy protection and ownership of personal data

What it Means for Privacy Advocates:

A backlash against Facebook’s betrayal of initial user privacy promises

Development of apps designed to protect personal user interests

A need to consider multiple company initiatives towards user data ownership when looking at long-term goals of Facebook

Last Thursday, San Francisco bid adieu to the first ever Chirp conference –  an event devoted to developers building apps for Twitter. And while there was earlier drama surrounding the event and even some remarkable news during the keynotes on day one of the event, in the end, Twitter threw one heck of a party that seemed to say “thank you all for showing up, this is how we party with friends”.

Held at the 1015 nightclub in San Francisco, Twitter’s after-party was pretty much a technology all-star event and the company seemed to make sure you knew that you were in a posh nightclub and were well taken care of. From an open bar throughout the night to practically four rooms of music and beats from great DJs, this was certainly the place to be that night. But Twitter had a few “surprises” in store for folks at the 1015 club. In the main room, two DJ booths were set up for some very important guests. The first one was BT, a renowned DJ originally from the Bay Area and now travels around the world. He definitely got the crowd riled up and ready to move. Then around 11pm, the main event took the stage. He had made a surprise appearance at the Chirp conference talking about his experience at Twitter and now he was back at the after-party not to mingle, but perform: Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas hit the stage for what amounted to nothing short of an awesome non-stop performance. For the next four hours, Will.I.Am played the DJ and continued to get the crowd going.

From what I saw, there was also a bevvy of who’s who at the Chirp party, including Mashable’s Ben Parr, oneforty’s Laura Fitton, Loic Le Meur, Chris Messina, Dave McClure, Scott Beale, Larry Chiang and countless others.

Here are a few photos from the event:

This was the main room before they opened up the dance floor. People were pretty much packed in.

Rebecca Reeve, Danielle Morrill & Chris Saad

Loic Le Meur

BT takes the stage to peform his set

BT performing & crowd dancing

Here’s Will.I.Am!

The crowd gathers in the main room for Will.I.Am

Is Will.I.Am tweeting?

Ben Parr, Danielle Morrill & Gregarious Narain

Photos above were taken by Kenneth Yeung.

The 4th annual Web 2.0 Expo SF will be kicking off in just a few weeks, running May 3-6, with the tag line “Platforms For Growth.” Whole industries are being built on top of new platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and raising tough questions for businesses.

We are giving away Two (2) free full conference passes to Web 2.0 Expo to lucky Bubblicious readers. To enter, just tell us which topic area(s) you are interested in and why. You can find the complete list below.

Topics Covered at Web 2.0 Expo SF

Web 2.0 Expo will have 75+ sessions, workshops, and intensives for designers, developers, entrepreneurs, marketers, business strategists, and investors, covering 10 topic areas:

• Business model strategies
• Design & UX best practices
• Social media success
• Cutting edge development
• The mobile tsunami
• Performance challenges
• Practical analytics
• Real-time opportunities
• Enterprise tools
• Creating Community

So which are you looking forward to the most? Tell us in the comments below (and leave your email address!).

See you at Web 2.0 Expo SF!

by Brian Remmel

Larry Chiang edits the BusinessWeek channel “What They Don’t Teach at Business School”. After a Harvard Business School keynote, Harbus wrote: “What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School“. If you read his scandalously awesome “What They STILL Don’t Teach You at Stanford About Getting Revenge” and, “What They STILL Don’t Teach at GSB About Public Speaking” you will like his latest post about “Using Twitter to Save Money- The Broke Diaries”.

By Larry Chiang

Chirp is the conference about Twitter. Just like anything else tech and communication… there is a way to hack it up. When I say hacking, I mean a better way to do stuff.

-1- 650.

I have this theory that as a conference producer there are about 650 things that need to get done and planned. Awesome conferences do about 450 or 500. Most conferences do about 300 things. There is opportunity doing 10-30 of the 650 things to augment and improve the conference experience.

-2- Venue Location(s) is/are Important.

I pre-scoped the location and combed through the venue and scheduling. The location is like a roadmap of where and how conference attendees ebb and flow.

-3- People Want Pictures

So here they are.

Biz Stone welcomes you to Twitter Chirp

Twitter broke it wide open at SXSW

Biz Stone reveals registered Twitter user numbers- 107,779,710

Evan Williams Launched Twitter Conference

Evan Williams showing partners using Twitter as a platform

Twitter’s Positive Impact

-4- Host an After Party.

Hosting is the easiest and best way to get traction of your idea. Liquor is one option, but I like food because I’d rather eat.

At Chirp, I am making marianated BBQ hot dogs.
http://plancast.com/a/2a7i

-5- Shoot Simple Video

Bam! Here are three awesome videos

-6- Lead Gen!

If you get a business card, make sure you record and keep it. Your value of attending is knowledge second and contacts first.

-7- Dress for Impression

At the tech portion of the conference, I wanted to dress like a biz dev guy…

…at the biz dev portion, I wanted to dress like a tech dev dude. My goal is to bridge the hinterlands of burgeoning tech with a dash of sales and revenue. I want tech dudes to see me as sales-ie and sales / VC dudes to think I’m techie

-8- Promote Someone Else Before You Promote You

It is weak sauce to promote just yourself.

It is genius to promote something else because it shows you’re an expert in the field and confident enough in your own venture. Plus, people sit for the self-promotion when they pull it out of you versus you pushing it at them.

Social marketing ad network MyLikes has just raised a 630,000 seed round, according to TechCrunch. The round comes from 11 ex-Google employees, including a former AdSense tech lead.

The platform, formerly known as Likaholix, aims to connect the long tail of influencers on the web to endorse products and services they like. Advertisers sponsor tweets or blog mentions on a pay-per-post basis. Since it’s launch in January, MyLikes has signed up 20,000 influencers into its network.

Called ‘The Holy Grail of Social Media Monetization,’ MyLikes will be competing with the likes of Twitter’s new ad platform and others. CEO Bindu Reddy claims that the MyLikes network’s pay-per-click  rates are two to three times less expensive on average than AdSense in the U.S.

Given the strong team backing, we’ll be watching MyLikes’ promising future.