Facebook’s open graph in a nutshell

In the last 2 weeks, most of you would have heard about Facebook's new open graph concept, so what is it really about? Let me illustrate to you in a layperson's term.

Firstly let's look at some of the obvious changes that has already been set in motion, if you have noticed at sites like IMDB, ESPN, CNN and popular blog sites all over the net, there is this "Facebook like" symbol that has been put in place after every entry or article. This "Facebook like" symbol works the same as the one on Facebook, so upon clicking on it, a status will appear reflecting something like "Bob Daniel likes this" (be it a news article on CNN or a movie on IMDB).

There is more, if any your Facebook friends had already "like" this particular article of movie, you would be able to see it next to the "Facebook like" button, it will go something like "Denise wee and 15 others likes this".

Upon going back to your Facebook profile, you will see that on your profile page and subsequently your live feed, it will reflect the particular item you have just "like". This would then be viewed by all your Facebook friends and to top it off, let's say you were to "like" a movie on IMDB, Facebook will automatically add the movie to the list of your favorite movies on your info page.

Of course there are still many more implementations besides the "like" button, but to keep it short and simple, I won't really go deeper, but what does it really mean for the web and for us, the users? In accordance to Mark Zukerburg, The CEO of Facebook Inc, Facebook's open graph aims is to create an instantly social and personalized experience for web users all over the world, allowing a platform that places people in the center of the web.

By people, he simply means that this will put Facebook in the center of the World Wide Web, this open graph will then allow Facebook to pull in and connect the various different web graphs (i.e different web categories, societies etc.) to its ever growing social media platform. With an exponential growth in the number of Facebook users as well as the sites adopting Facebook's open graph being expected in the coming months, this will eventually lead to - More advertising dollars and control for Facebook, and in conclusion, it leads to - World Wide Web Domination.