Facebook will soon have an application store…well, not exactly. Facebook will soon have an application repository. A display showcase. Those are probably more apt descriptions of what the social giant will unveil with App Center. Essentially, Facebook will turn itself into an application hub – a traffic director for social apps and games across any device and any platform. This is not the rumored “end-run around Apple’s App Store” that many talk about; rather, App Center is a unique proposition, and one that is 100% Facebook.
To understand where Facebook is coming from with App Center, it helps to know the company’s modus operandi to this point in its history. Facebook is built around two central principles: the browser and sharing. The browser is what Facebook is built upon, even for its native (hybrid) apps. Sharing is the core philosophy of Facebook, as everything it does has to be social in one way or another. The concept of the “social graph” on the Web existed before Facebook, but the company has taken the idea to a whole new level.
In many ways, the App Center was destined to be built one way or another since 2007. When we look back 20 or 40 years from now, we will note that 2007 was the year in which two very big things happened: Facebook opened its platform to be built upon, and Apple released the iPhone.
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