hi5 looks to play catchup with Facebook

VentureBeat reports that hi5 is working on a platform, i.e. copying what Facebook have done.
VentureBeat » Hi5 is working on its own platform for developers, to take on Facebook

By Eric Eldon 10.5.07    hi5.pngFacebook rival Hi5 says it is working on its own developer platform today, the latest social network to realize that it had better open up quickly or potentially lose customers to more active pastures. The San Francisco company announced the move at the CommunityNext conference, for developers who build applications on social networking platforms. Hi5 is around the same size as Facebook worldwide, with more than 35 million active users on its site, according to recent Comscore data. The company already lets users embed Flash widgets developed by third parties, similar to Myspace. It has also developed more advanced features of its application programming interface (API). It is currently giving access to select widget-makers, including Slide and RockYou. Hi5 hopes to have a platform ready for general use within the next twelve months.

I never really understood why platforms such as Bebo and hi5 wanted to be so closed to the widgetsphere. Or to put it another way, to sell access to specific widget providers. While this may seem like a good revenue source, it is spitting in the eye of the users who are thenceforth condemmned to use whatever it might be that the 'partners' come up with. And generally that isn't what the users want. The users just don't end up with access to the latest thinking, and they exist in a hermetic world away from developments being made elsewhere. Compare the richness available to Facebook users, or even MySpace users, to what Bebo members get to play with. Game over. And now they want a year to catch up.

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