Facebook's Goal: 'Blowing Up the Browser'

Facebook has opened its user “feeds” to widget developers, paving the way to a new existence in the decentralized, cross-platform “AfterWeb,” Josh Quittner writes in Time. Though the move is seen by some as a counter to rival Twitter, which can already be accessed in myriad ways, Quittner sees a more radical rationale. Facebook is “blowing up the browser,” he writes.

The site is "unbundling its Web-site-based business and allowing developers to turn Facebook into a bunch of discrete services that can be delivered over a variety of devices (from PCs to Smartphones) far more easily than via its website,” writes Quittner. Facebook—which looks to be behind a recent spike in downloads of tools developers need for site-specific “AfterWeb” additions—echoed the idea. “A user shouldn’t have to come to facebook.com to use Facebook,” an exec said. (More Facebook stories.)