Crunchy Mustard

Right now, Facebook and Myspace are in a boxing match and Myspace is on the floor crying.

A few days ago Facebook launched themselves into the world of open-sourcedom through their brand-spanking-new developer platform. The API gives a limitless amount of third party developers direct access to Facebook’s functionality and its 20 million users. “Huh?” you say?

Commonly referred to as “apps” any Facebook user can head over to the directory and use a two-click system to install tons of different applications to their profile. There are more than 20 different categories to choose from including music, business, messaging, and mobile. Many of the applications offer direct connections to popular services such as Twitter and digg.

Facebook also fills the void where Myspace once lead with user-uploaded MP3s, photo slide-shows, and scrapbooks. These new features joined with the sleek look of Facebook (rivaling Myspace’s tainted blinking heart backgrounds) and extreme user functionality make the question of choosing a social network not a decision but an IQ test.

Users can also now remove existing Facebook applications (like Facebook photos) and replace them with new ones. Like Microsoft with Windows, this creates an situation in which Facebook is competing with other developers on its own platform.

The bottom line? Although Myspace still trumps Facebook with 100 million users over 20 million users (with growth of 300,000 versus 100,000 users per day), Facebook’s new transparency and access to its core features will offer amazing advances in marketing to create a viral phenomena like never seen before.

Me? Right now I’m updating my Twitter, while doing a few diggs, after having created a digital slide show and updating my favorite RSS feeds to compare with my friends… all through my pretty Facebook profile.