Happy 2nd Birthday, Facebook Platform!

Last week was the two-year anniversary of our f8 conference, where Facebook Platform was first launched. I wanted to take this opportunity to provide an update on how far we’ve come and where Platform is heading.

Facebook allows users to easily share and connect with the people, organizations, and products they care about. Facebook Platform extended this by giving developers an easy way to build exciting new experiences directly into the core site. The result was the development of new classes of applications that transformed the social graph from being an abstract concept into a tool that enables a new level of sharing all across the world.

The growth we have seen on Platform has been tremendous. Today there are over 350,000 active applications on Platform from over 950,000 developers living in more than 180 countries. These range from simple applications created by single users to share with their friends to impressive businesses employing hundreds of people and reaching tens of millions of users every month and generating tens of millions of dollars of revenue. For example, close to 10,000 applications have 10,000 or more monthly active users, and more than 100 applications have more than 1 million monthly active users. Further extending the reach of Facebook Platform, we launched Facebook Connect less than six months ago, and today there are over 10,000 websites and applications using it to empower their users to connect and share with their friends across the Web, and on devices and consoles including the iPhone, Xbox Live, and Nintendo DSi.

Throughout the past two years, you’ve seen Facebook open more and more of the social graph through Platform. We joined OpenID and implemented it into Facebook. We launched the Open Stream API providing access to the News Feed on any site. In the future, you can expect us to continue to open the site and provide access to the underlying social graph and functionality of Facebook. We’ll also continue to help users discover the best applications on Platform through programs like Application Verification, and develop the Platform technology infrastructure so that it is as stable and robust as Facebook itself. Our goal is to ensure that Facebook Platform is the best place to build your business.

I joined Facebook because I believe it has the power to change the world in profound ways. I was inspired to join the Platform team because Platform is the tool that will amplify this effect into lives and a world far beyond that created by Facebook. Platform unites a tremendous community of entrepreneurs, technologists, businesses, non-profits, students, and others, who are all looking to change the world. If Facebook is to truly achieve its mission of making the world more open and connected, it will be Facebook Platform that extends this to the world.

On this second anniversary of our Platform launch, we'd like to hear about the impact Facebook Platform has had on you. Please sign the Memory Book, created by GroupCard.

Our plan is to print and hang your thoughts up for display in our new office.

Thank you for helping us grow our community around Facebook Platform, and for your active participation on our Developer site (posting to the forum, updating the wiki, and helping us find and fix bugs). Most of all, thank you for creating amazing experiences for our users.

We're committed to continuing to make innovating on and off Facebook easier, and we look forward to many more years with all of you!