Twitter has been an obsession of Zuckerberg's for some time. He tried to buy the message-broadcasting startup last year, but talks fell apart. Now he's set about rebuilding Facebook in Twitter's image. Facebook has announced an "Open Stream API," an interface for application programmers to download the spew of friends' status updates that now greets users when they log into Facebook. In theory, developers will now be able to code a raft of applications whose main purpose is reading Facebook.

Such a raft already exists for Twitter: TweetDeck, Tweetie, HootSuite, and ones with stranger names for users who tire of using Twitter's already dead-simple website. Twitter enthusiasts say they make the service easier to manage, by handling multiple accounts or tracking search terms as they pop up in Twitter messages.

It's a move in the wrong direction for Facebook. Instead of letting third-party developers remix and filter its users' output, it ought to be doing the job itself. In fact, until its latest redesign, Facebook was doing exactly that, points out Wall Street Journal editor Julia Angwin. The News Feed was a carefully pruned version of today's Stream, with only the most interesting items presented to users. Where the Stream is all noise, the News Feed was pure signal. Perhaps some clever developer can reproduce Facebook's lost algorithm in his own application. We'd download that.

It's understandable that the Republicans want to get hip to this Internet thing. It's universally acknowledged that Barack Obama's social-network-savvy Web effort first steamrollered Hillary Clinton's formidable but old-school political operation, then sledgehammered late Twitter adopter John McCain in the general election. Even now, anyone even tangentially involved in the campaign is claiming to be the Web guru who got Obama elected.

The GOP's web aspirations are as ludicrously ambitious as they are maddeningly vague.

Chairman Steele made his tech priorities clear... "bottom line is if we haven't done it — let's do it. If we haven't thought of it — think of it. If it hasn't been tried — why not? If it's going to be 'outside the box' — then not only keep it outside the box, but take it to someplace the box hasn't even reached yet.

In fairness, someone probably once told Steele that people who live in urban-surburban hip-hop settings talk crap like that. But if Steele wants to catch up to the Democrats' online efforts, he'll have to do better than the risible request for proposal he sent out. Some highlights from the document's hopelessly vague and self-contradictory requirements:

Integrate outside products through common API's, widgets, or iframes (examples: Kimbia fundraising, Voter Vault, Widgetbox, Ning).

Flash interfaces can often make mundane tasks exciting, and having Flash developers who understand user behavior will make the site more user-friendly.

No limitations on design; the RNC will be in on the entire process and will ensure everything is to our exact specifications.

Oh, and did the RNC mention they want the website within 45 days, on a fixed budget? Dale Franks at The Next Right calls the GOP operatives who put the proposal out "clueless losers." That's being kind. The last thing any designer wants is a client who's "in on the entire process," throwing out buzzwords they read in some two-year-old article about the Web clipped from a newspaper. The full proposal:

RNC Website RFP

Portfolio.com's Jeff Bercovici reports on the event:

I just came from The New York Times building, where I took in part of Times Open, "a day-long event for developers interested in working with NYTimes.com as a news and information platform." Apparently there are a lot of those people. I had to sit on the floor because every seat was taken by a 30-ish guy in jeans with a Mac laptop. Most of them seemed to be Twittering the conference as they went, and following each other's Twitter feeds. Surreal moment: At one point, the guy sitting closest to me was reading a blog post containing a photo of the guy sitting immediately behind him.

The speaker was Tim O'Reilly, a book publisher and conference organizer best known for popularizing the term "Web 2.0." We wonder: Did O'Reilly anticipate that the two-way, interactive websites he advocated would one day obviate the need for actual human interaction?

(Photo by William Couch)

By Facebook's math, one $25,000 grant + one $250,000 grant = a total of $250,000. In announcing the Round I winners, Facebook's Catherine Lee pulled a $225,000 figure out of thin air: "Once round two closes in December, we will announce our five finalists, each of which will receive up to an additional $225,000 in funding." I'm sure Facebook flack Elliot Schrage has some highly entertaining explanation for this which he will deliver straightfaced to other reporters, who will then call us and howl with laughter. For now, we're content to just blame Sheryl Sandberg.

Facebook had first promised an announcement for September 22, then October 10. The results finally came today — only after Valleywag pointed out the ongoing delay. Facebook is now spinning the "amazing diversity" of its winners. Translation: They gave up and picked them at random. A suggestion to Facebook's grant-granters: If no one deserves a prize, it's totally okay not to give one.

Here's an update for anyone who didn't get the memo: Facebook's applications "platform," a set of software tools for embedding timewasting entertainments within the social network's pages, is not a level playing field. Some applications are more equal than others. That's only become clearer since Facebook foolishly put Facebook's platform in the hands of its top flack, Washington-trained bloviator Elliot Schrage. Facebook's Great Apps program, meant to designate higher-quality applications, has become a shameful excuse for nepotism.

Awarding money on the merits is hard enough. When you mix in the need to help out your COO's brother-in-law's pet startup, or your ex-president's latest venture, it complicates matters. Is Facebook going to come out with a list of apps to fund that it's truly proud of? Or will this look more like an appropriations bill after it's made its way through Congress, larded with earmarks?

Kennedy said Podcaster takes as long as 3 to 5 minutes to load some menus, that he had to dismiss a confirmation sheet each time he added a new podcast, and that Podcaster's interface is crowded and ugly.

Remember, ugly is an unforgivable sin in the eyes of Apple, which warns developers on its Developer Connection site:

Apple human interface engineers labored painstakingly over every pixel in Aqua, so it’s important that you pay close attention to the details of your application’s Aqua user interface.

Beyond Podcaster's three fatal flaws, writes Kennedy, "there are a few obvious reasons why a platform such as iPhone might choose not to carry an application in its storefront:"

• Chargebacks. Buyers frequently return your product for reasons including buyer's remorse or just receiving a different product than they expected. The "I Am Rich" $1000 iPhone app carries a heavy chargeback risk.
• Insufficient differentiation. App authors should be able to submit an application to App Store and expect there won't be a knock-off product sold directly alongside. Open-source applications can swap out an application title and submit the app as their own without adding new functionality.
• Misleading marketing, including trademarks. Don't misrepresent yourself or your product or cause obvious confusion.
• Horrible customer experience. Apple will recommend interface designers who can assist you with visual aspects of your application. Long load times or heavy resource utilization might will make both you and the platform look bad.

"I already have users complain that they can't find apps again on the new profile after first using them. the latest changes will make it even harder," writes one developer. Another: "Yup, this is a very intense change. And pretty useless from a user experience point of view. Hopefully they roll it back immediately or it was just a mistake."

I don't have a problem with updates being reviewed but it has to go a lot faster. Given the no-demos rule, an app lives or dies by App Store reviews. It's incredibly frustrating to watch review after review complain about a bug that you fixed and "shipped" two weeks ago.

Hello Developer,

We've reviewed your application Pull My Finger. We have determined that this application is of limited utility to the broad iPhone and iPod touch user community, and will not be published to the App Store.

It may be very appropriate to share with friends and family, and we recommend you review the Ad Hoc method on the Distribution tab of the iPhone Developer Portal for details on distributing this application among a small group of people of your choosing.

Regards,

Victor Wang
Worldwide Developer Relations
Apple, Inc.

Microsoft called the store "Skymarket" in the now-removed job posting, an unfortunate name which reminds us of 2004 flop Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow), and said the store will open sometime in 2009. There were few more details, mostly because it would be the new hire's responsibility to define "the product offering, pricing, business model and policies that will make the Windows Mobile marketplace 'the place to be' for developers wishing to distribute and monetize their Windows Mobile applications."

A screenshot from the not-yet-launched store seems designed to appeal to wonky coders, not the mass market of non-technical buyers Google will need to attract. My guess: Google will fall all over themselves insisting it's all about developers and Freedom, until the store is ready for launch. Then they'll shove ZeDev Tools and Murderdrome aside for Bingo and FlipBook. At least with a YouTube-like rating system, there's a chance of surprise hits that aren't chosen by app store curators with a canned idea of what a smartphone is for.

When I spoke to each of you about Tapulous, whether I recruited you, or inherited you from GoGoApps, I spoke of an engineering paradise where smart people would come together to ship beautiful applications, to lead a computing revolution, and to become a real force for world change.

It's a blustery start, yes: app development is world-changingly romantic, but romance rarely pays the bills. Still, it's not as silly as when he starts to channel Steve Jobs:

So what now? I’m going to work on my autobiography and come to terms with being ejected from the company I helped build. I’m going to spend time with my wife, and continue to fret over Madagascar. Then, when the next interesting project comes along, you’ll hear about it here. So in closing, my team, my friends, I must leave you to the fight.

Who can resist a tease about their next act when they're headed out the door, right? But Lee doesn't stop there. No, his new project comes pitched in his very next post:

Yesterday I said I was going to hang out and write and figure out what I want to do, but it's kind of obvious what I want to do... Forget professional CEOs. I'm an engineer, and a company is a just a project with formal ownership. Let's engineer a better company... Here's an idea — I could take my newly minted Silicon Valley Veteran badge and appeal to investors who are personal heroes, like Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Guy Kawasaki, Paul Graham, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Alison Jolly, Richard Dawkins, and Wil Shipley.

As iPhone developer (and former Apple developer) Buzz Andersen points out as a friendly counterpoint, Lee isn't doing anything all that revolutionary by taking a comparatively stupid amount of money to make iPhone apps.

But that's what developers really want, to be the celebrities in their own rockstar scene. And that requires the kind of ineffable "indie cred" taking VC cash could tarnish.

But do they want to put out a good product, or just a product that makes themselves feel good? Maybe "doing it punk rock-style," as Andersen suggests, isn't just a glamorous way to frame bootstrapping. It also allows coders like Lee to pose as uncompromising revolutionaries. Right: Uncompromising revolutionaries who help Steve Jobs sell millions of iPhones out of the kindness of their hearts.

The list is topped by an widget called Mob Wars, which exhorts users to "Join the Mafia, and start your own mob. Band together with your friends to become the most powerful force in the elite criminal underworld of Facebook." DeveloperAnalytics says Mob Wars' users return to its page 60 times a day. Facebook's most popular application, Slide's FunWall, only shows up fifth on the list, because users load its pages just two or three times a day. Here's what DeveloperAnalytics didn't account for in running the numbers: Slide's opening an office in New York to sell its inventory to major brands, while Mob Wars ads ask if you want to take an IQ challenge.

According to Iminlikewithyou's Charles Forman, who's working on porting his startup's copycat games to the iPhone, there's not much in common between the platforms besides the word "app."

A Facebook app is easy. It's a Web app. The hard part is all the viral "mutherfuckery" that they do. iPhone is like writing a program. Theres a big upfront learning curve. It's a totally different ballgame. A shit developer can make some Web app. But you have to be a good developer to make an iPhone app.

Forman couldn't deliver a cogent explanation of the differences — something to do with the "real-time" nature of iPhone apps. So we asked our favorite developer with a heart of gold and a tongue of acid, former Uncov blogger and Pressflip cofounder Ted Dziuba, to elaborate. The best he could do, below.

• You're going to have to figure out how to store data without MySQL. Years of PHP development has warped your mind to think that everything must be object relational. There's no 12-step program yet, Apple will release it with the next firmware update.
• We know you like to live a life free of authority and rules, but there's one rule you're going to have to follow: Objective C syntax, and the compiler will taser your ass if you get out of line.
• Information wants to be free, right? Well, not Apple's. Especially the developer documentation: that will cost you $99. But you already own more than $8,000 worth of Apple equipment, what's another few bucks? Anyway, since I'm not forking over $100 to look at documentation, that's really as far as I can go.

The first Android-loaded phone — the HTC dream, to run on the T-Mobile network — isn't due out until October. It's not certain that when that device does come out that Android will be much to look at. Ever since Google released its last software developement kit only to the first 50 winners of its Android Developer Challenge, the jealous rest of the third-party developers building apps for the OS continue to trash the system's prospects in the press.

Last fall, Microsoft paid $240 million for 1.6 percent of Facebook, along with an advertising deal. That wasn't because it was a popular social network, but because the tech press was talking up Facebook as a platform for social applications — a Windows for widgets.

Facebook's platform has fallen far short of that promise. The successful apps widgetmakers created in the first year of the platform's existence succeeded through spammy viral tactics, not by being particularly useful or fun for Facebook users. Social-games maker Zynga, for example, makes its games easier to win for users who invite their friends to play. Facebook began changing its platform rules to discourage such tactics in January. This summer, it brought out the stick, suspending popular applications like Top Friends for violations.

Now comes the carrot, in the form of the fbFund. To taste Facebook's cash, developers must meet a specific set of criteria from Facebook. We've translated them from PR-speak below.

Facebook's criteria:

• Originality of Concept: Does the application introduce a great idea in a new and unexplored area?
• Market: Is this application targeted to key audiences or meet compelling market needs?
• Social/Useful: Does the application enable people to interact with each other? Does it deliver real value to users (including entertainment)?
• Expressive: Does the application allow people to share more information?
• Intuitive: Is the application compelling and easy to use? Does it have a well-thought-out user experience?
• Potential: Can it be a real business someday?
• Team: Do you believe this team can execute and is driven to succeed?

Facebook's criteria, translated:

• Originality of Concept: Does the application do more than bring a ripoff of a popular MySpace feature to Facebook? You know, the kind we can have an intern copy between yawns?
• Market: Would you use the app if it weren't created by you?
• Social/Useful: No really, would you?
• Expressive: Does the application allow people to share more information? Will it advance peace talks in the Middle East?
• Intuitive: Is the application easy to use? For a drunk frat boy at UCLA?
• Potential: Can it be a real business someday? Do you know what a real business is?
• Team: Do you believe this team can execute or do you we need to execute your team?

(Photo by Bill in Ash Vegas)