Power of Thought

Recently posted on the Facebook blog:

Almost two million new users from around the world sign up for Facebook each week—and we couldn’t be happier. It’s tremendously rewarding to see so many people find what we work on useful and fun. As we continue to add new users and features, however, the load on our thousands of servers continues to increase at a pretty astounding rate. A few weeks ago we reached full capacity in our California datacenters. In the past we handled this problem by purchasing a few dozen servers, hooking them up, and getting on with our lives, but this time we didn’t have it so easy. We’d actually run out of space in our datacenters for new machines.

Fortunately we saw this problem coming a long time ago and started work on a new datacenter in Virginia. Now, we identify whether a user would be better off talking to the east coast datacenter or a west coast data center. For people in Europe and the eastern half of the US, it’s noticeably faster to talk to a server in Virginia than in California. For these users we direct them to Virginia whenever they’re browsing the site and not making any changes.

Whenever that person goes to change some data—uploading a photo album, or changing profile info for example—we send them off to California so that all our modifying operations happen in the same location. This decision was made to prevent two or more modifications from conflicting with each other and messing up our data. It might sound like we’re forcing our users to go to California a lot but only about 10% of our traffic causes a modifying operation. MySQL has a great replication feature that allows us to, in real time, stream all the modifications happening on a California MySQL server to another one in Virginia. Replication happens so fast, even across the country, that the Virginia servers are almost never more than one or two seconds behind the California servers.

Even though all of the modification happens in California and streams instantly to Virginia, we were faced with another problem. Although Facebook’s data is stored in MySQL database servers, we use a large number of memcached servers to store copies of the data. Memcached is much faster and able to keep up with requests quicker than the databases themselves can keep up. We had to figure out a way for memcached servers to replicate data concurrently with the MySQL databases. Because of various technical limitations of our architecture there was no easy way to do so.

Fortunately MySQL is open source software, meaning we can actually change the way it works by modifying the code. We did just that—embedding extra information in to the MySQL replication stream that allows us to properly update memcached in Virginia. This ensures that the cache and the database are always in sync. Over the last seven months a great team of Facebook employees has been building new software and setting up new servers like I described above. Over Thanksgiving we finally flipped the switch and since then almost 30% of our traffic has been served from Virginia.

The east coast datacenter is a great first step towards keeping Facebook fast and reliable as the site grows. Going forward we have lots of exciting plans to expand our infrastructure and improve performance so no user ever has to sit around waiting for a page to load.

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Facebook is planning on allowing users to add activities from third party social networking site directly into their Facebook news feed, we’ve confirmed. The goal is to centralize all that activity in one place.

Third parties can already integrate directly today via the Facebook API, Beacon and the Facebook Platform, but adoption from these companies, which are indirectly also competing with Facebook, has been slow. Now, users can add the content stream directly. Users simply tell Facebook what third party services they use the most, along with their credentials or public feed for the site. The content stream is then pulled into your Facebook News Feed.

What this means: in your friends news feed, you may start to see more content from Flickr, Twitter, Digg and other third party services. This competes directly with what a number of startups are doing - namely FriendFeed, Plaxo Pulse and the more recently launched Iminta.

This is certainly an opening up of Facebook. And given that so many tens of millions of users spend so much time on the site already, it could remove the wind from the FriendFeed/Plaxo sails.

But don’t expect to see a RSS feed or widgets showing what you or your friends are up to any time soon. The data feeds that Facebook opened up last year do not extend to the News Feed. And from what we hear, Facebook hasn’t made a decision to open it up yet. Until they do, there is still plenty of breathing room for competitors.

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Interesting post written by Sid over at rev2.org lists his top eight predictions for 2008:

1. Acquisitions: The following startups and companies will be acquired (and two most possible buyers in that order):

• Twitter (Yahoo! [the Yang revival?], Microsoft [the Ballmer promise?])
• Digg (New York Times, Microsoft)
• Technorati (Google, Yahoo!)
• Techmeme (New York Times, Yahoo!)
• Pownce (Microsoft, Yahoo!)
• Tumblr (Yahoo!, Microsoft)

2. Facebook: Facebook won’t die. The new Facebook is Facebook. Instead, it will continue to grow and grow — internationally more so. How will they do that? Simple, like they’ve always been — introduce revolutionary new features, fail, fail, fail, jackpot, fail, fail, fail (note that I use the term “fail” very loosely — a more appropriate phrasing would be “wen’t nowhere” or even “didn’t make the NYT.”) Contrary to many of the skepticisms over Facebook’s revenue model, Facebook will find a revenue stream and thus a way to keep its $15b valuation. If 2007 was a sky-rocketing year for Facebook this year, 2008 will be a period of steady growth, where things get a little more settled and stable. Less valuation talk, more actual work done.

3. Google: The number and rate of new Google products introduced will decrease. Instead, what will increase is the quality and reach of them — Google Reader will very possibly be among the first RSS readers to make the mainstream, the Google Office suite products (i.e. their eventual “release” updates) will continue to offer unique and interesting functionality pushing some consumers to ditch the Microsoft, Google Video will branch out into a niche: video search and attempt to do it in an awesome way, and lastly, Google News will turn into an AJAX startpage-esque product (or opt for some of that functionality). Oh, and speaking of startpages, iGoogle will either hit the mainstream jackpot or die in the minds of its current users.

4. Yahoo!: 2008, in general, will be a huge test for Yahoo! and its revival. For years they’ve been thriving on the old mainstream model, and as the web’s current highest trafficked website, they’ll be needing a Plan B to keep it alive, or simply put, hit a few jackpots from their current 10 - 20 “lab tests.” I’m not sure what to think of Jerry Yang’s recent 60-day revival strategy period and it’s fairly difficult for anyone to predict what — if anything — came out of it, but surely, Yahoo! doesn’t seem like one that is going to go away anytime soon. They won’t grow as fast as they’ve been, and at worse mostly irrelevant to the Internet industry, but as a company I think they’ve got some big challenges ahead and the advantage of playing a contender where failure isn’t a possibility but success is the golden cookie. And one of the things that’s going to be trivial in their revival strategy, I think, is going to be acquisitions and lots of them. (read: point #1)

5. Microsoft: As if Steve Ballmer’s Web 2.0 keynote wasn’t enough to say it, 2008 will be a big year for Microsoft. Obviously, we’re looking at a lot of acquisitions, products, and murders (yes, I’m talking to you, the 5 or so Live products that no one uses.) In any case, I think 2008 will be the year we know Microsoft’s stance on the web. We’ve been trying to figure it out for years and it always seems like there’s something right around the corner that is going to make it for them (remember the new MSN Search, anyone?) In any case, Bill Gates’ exit — for the good or the bad — will mean that there is increased activity in Microsoft’s Web properties. And will we find out whether the Web Office is Microsoft Office? I don’t think so, I think we’ll be needing two or three more years for that, but this won’t be stopping them from trying.

6. Buzzwords: “AJAX” will die. “The Long Tail” will die. “Folksonomy” is dead. “Crowdsourcing” hasn’t really gone anywhere, and it may or may not. “Web 2.0″ is at its peak, so I think next year is going to be when its use really reduces, and 2009 when it dies completely. RSS will be replaced by “feeds”, and the buttons with simply “Subscribe.” “New media” will survive for a couple more years. “Podcasts” will survive. “Social Network” will survive to refer to anything not Facebook, and “social graph,” until Facebook is alive, will be used to refer to Facebook. And lastly, “Web 3.0″ is the most unoriginal and ambiguous word that ever exists, so it’s NOT going to be the successor of Web 2.0. At least, I hope so. Need I say more?

7. iPhone: If 2007 was a big year for the iPhone, I think 2008 will be when its survival is really tested. That 10 million mark Apple’s aiming for? They’re going to get it, and not only that, I think they’ll surpass it. And with more iPhone users comes increased activity on the mobile web, which, iPhone user or not, I think is good for everyone. Of course, with the web apps not really getting anywhere among users web developers have something to cringe about, but native apps coming February and more iPhones in circulation will in the long run will prove best for all developers — web or not. And what about iPhone 2.o, you’re wondering? I’m not one to predict specific features, but I think the web experience will continue to get better and better and I can imagine a day where I’d opt for the iPhone because it’s close to me than open my Macbook and wait for Firefox to boot (yes, I know the iPhone has a great web browser interface already, but I’m still really attached to the traditional Firefox on my traditional Macbook. Either I’ll change, or the iPhone will.)

8. OpenSocial: I know you’re only reading this paragraph to find out where I think it will flop or not, so I’ll cut to the chase. I think OpenSocial has a lot to offer, but I think Facebook apps — and their usage — is more powerful that all the others combined, and there lies the future of OpenSocial. I think it’s a good attempt — great attempt — by Google, and better than any social network they could’ve built (or have), but it won’t be enough to bring down Facebook or even hurt it in any way. If anything, OpenSocial is going to validate Facebook’s model of social apps and attract more developers into the landscape. However, this doesn’t mean developers are going to not adopt it. They are, and many existing Facebook app developers are too, but what won’t equate to the Facebook advantage is the number of users and the usage.

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Google is the elephant in nearly every corner of the Internet, from search and advertising to web-based e-mail, online mapping, and home-brewed video. With its share price setting new highs this fall, its market cap ($188 billion) is now large enough to buy the New York Times, the Washington Post, Gannett, and Time Warner - twice. Or Facebook many, many times over.

The problem is, Facebook’s not for sale. And that’s got Google running scared. It’s an open secret in Silicon Valley that the company has been shopping around a nondisclosure agreement outlining its plan to create its own massive social network - and asking anyone with a pulse to sign it.

Google has to do something fast, because some of its best talent is starting to head for the exits. In July, Gideon Yu, finance chief at Google’s YouTube, left for Facebook. Now other Google guys, stuck in the Googleplex and smelling a Facebook IPO that could turn early employees into early retirees, are also jumping ship.

The latest defector: Benjamin Ling, the top engineer at Google Checkout, its online payment service. A Stanford comp-sci Ph.D., Ling will be overseeing Facebook’s entire software platform. Losing finance types is one thing. But smart engineers are the lifeblood of a great tech company, and Ling was worth a pint, insiders say.

Facebook’s threat to Google, of course, is bigger than a talent war. In fact, the stakes here are about as high as they get in the Internet business. Something is going on that we haven’t seen since Microsoft challenged Netscape and helped define the wide-open web.

Now the social networks are trying to do the opposite - to build what I call the Innernet. It’s the place you occupy with family and friends and where you exercise almost absolute control, showing the world only as much of your true self as you care to while protecting you and yours from the evil that lurks on the wider web, from spam artists to identity thieves. Whoever builds that walled garden stands to make the next great Internet fortune.

Facebook, until recently little more than a student hangout, is the odds-on favorite to win that race. In March founder Mark Zuckerberg opened the site to independent software developers, inviting them to write Facebook applications and reap a share of whatever revenue they generate.

Because creating Facebook applets was so easy, programmers could throw lots of stuff at the wall and quickly see what stuck. Take, for example, Super Wall, a little app that lets users add text, photos, video, or drawings to one another’s Facebook pages. It took a couple of developers part of a June weekend to write. Within three weeks, two million people were using it. Today, more than ten million do.

That’s a real economy (or could be, if someone figured out how to make money from it), and it explains why Facebook has suddenly pulled out of the slipstream of MySpace, growing from 20 million active users in April to more than 45 million today.

More cool apps mean more reasons for people to hang out there - and more reasons for developers to launch new apps. Worst of all for Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin: They can’t participate - for privacy reasons Google’s search engine is barred at Facebook’s door like an unwanted encyclopedia salesman.

How does Google plan to fight back? It’s gearing up to do for the web what Facebook did for its network, starting with its social networking site Orkut (which is big in Brazil) and extending it to Gmail, You Tube, iGoogle, and so on.

Imagine Google as the command center for your entire social life; you could chat and read your e-mail there, give your closest friends access to your calendar, and get minute-by-minute updates on their whereabouts. All the big social networks were invited to join the new coalition - even, presumably, Facebook. (No one from Facebook or Google would comment.)

Will it work? Google’s effort, I’m told, is being led by Joe Kraus, the founder of Excite. Though he is as Web 2.0 savvy as they come, I think Google’s plan may be too little too late. Everyone these days is opening up his network - even MySpace.

Besides, there’s no compelling reason for users to leave Facebook now. The developers will stay as long as they can reach a mass audience there. Google’s trying to fix something that isn’t broken - just as Microsoft has been doing for years with search and IBM tried to do with operating systems for PCs. Maybe Google should stick to organizing the world’s information, and let this little mouse roar.

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Microsoft Corp is in talks to buy up to 5 percent of Facebook in a deal that could value the fast-growing online social network company at $10 billion or more, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

The move could give maturing Microsoft more access to young users and let Facebook get closer to a major software maker at a time when its growth is increasingly tied to a proliferation of small applications from independent developers on its site.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the Journal said the world’s largest software company sought to buy a stake of up to 5 percent in Facebook for $300 million to $500 million.

Facebook, led by its 23-year-old founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, may insist on a valuation as high as $15 billion and is considering raising up to $500 million in cash to expand its operations, according to the Journal.

Such a deal could help Microsoft better compete against Web search leader Google Inc for a growing base of online advertising and put one of the Internet’s hottest names in Microsoft’s camp.

Facebook, which already has an advertising deal with Microsoft, would benefit from closer ties with developers as it seeks to turn its site into a full-fledged Web platform where users can play games, interact and read news about each other, said Forrester analyst Charlene Li.

“If you are building a business around building a platform there is one company that has done it better than anybody else — and that is Microsoft,” she said. “People have been just assuming that Google would be the best partner and that is not necessarily the case.”

Google has also expressed an interest in investing in Facebook, the Journal report said.

“It would probably be pretty good for Microsoft since it has not had the best success in creating really hip, young-people-grabbing stuff on the Web,” said Kim Caughey, a senior analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group, which oversees more than $1 billion, including Microsoft shares, for clients.

Representatives for Microsoft and Facebook declined to comment.

Zuckerberg has repeatedly said his company wants to remain independent and is seen as preparing to float itself on the stock market eventually.

Facebook has grown to 39 million members, up nearly 63 percent from 24 million in late May, and is quickly gaining ground on larger rival MySpace, which was taken over by News Corp in 2005 for what is now seen as a bargain price of $580 million. MySpace has more than 200 million users.

Facebook’s explosion popularity has also drawn increased scrutiny, including a 50-state investigation into the company by attorneys general concerned about Web sexual predators.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said on Monday his office had subpoenaed Facebook and accused it of not keeping young users safe. Facebook said it was preparing a statement about the issue.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft already has an exclusive agreement until 2011 to broker display advertisements for Facebook. The Journal said Microsoft and Facebook are discussing expanding that agreement beyond the United States.

After relinquishing an early advantage in the lucrative paid search market to Google and Yahoo Inc, Microsoft is trying to catch up by clinching deals to broker display advertising to some of the leading names in “Web 2.0.”

Yahoo and Google are also maneuvering. Earlier this year, for instance, News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch said he had discussed swapping MySpace for a 25 percent stake in Yahoo.

Web 2.0 is a catch-phrase for a new generation of Internet services that run on interactive software and typically rely on content generated by users to attract more visitors. Microsoft also has an agreement with popular news site Digg.com.

Microsoft shares rose 1.5 percent to $29.08 on Nasdaq.

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