Facebook application developers meet in Sydney

Thursday's meet-up adds to a long list of Facebook Developer Garages that have been held at worldwide locations since June 2007. Sydney's inaugural event has been organised by developer Chris Guzowski, founder of the Facebook application, Hostels.

"There are a few Facebook developers in Sydney that I know of, with a number of others looking to go into it," Guzowski said. "I have organised it [the event] to get fellow developers out of the woodwork, talking and helping each other, and help boost the local industry."

"I have been to an event in London, and to a couple of Facebook-related events in Silicon Valley. The events have been great for meeting people and exchanging ideas; they really get the creative juices flowing and facilitate quicker learning and development of skills."

Attendees of Thursday's event can expect a presentation about the Facebook Platform, a run-down of popular applications, video presentations by Facebook representatives and venture capitalists, as well as networking opportunities.

Expressing surprise that there hasn't yet been a Facebook Developer Garage in Sydney, Guzowski mentioned plans to be a regular host of the event, which has the sponsorship, recognition and support of Facebook Inc.

The event has also received sponsorship interest from the Australian technology industry, including Sun Microsystems, as well as IT recruitment companies, Web development companies, and brokers of Web advertising.

Since Facebook opened its doors to third-party developers last year, applications have been a source of contention among users of the site.
And while some companies and developers argue that applications introduce new business marketing potentials, some sections of the site have recently come under fire for trademark violations, privacy and security issues.

According to Guzowski, however, the burden of privacy control rests on the shoulders of Facebook users.

"Facebook, and our applications alike, have very powerful privacy control features, it is just a matter of users using them," he said.
"After all, it's users' choice exactly how much information they share."

"Opening up the platform is the best thing Facebook could have done; the third-party applications give Facebook so much more functionality and get people coming back to Facebook and spending more time there," he said. "Sure, there are some very annoying applications, but it's simply a matter of blocking them so as to not be pestered by them in the future."

Besides increasing market exposure for the Hostels application, Guzowski expects the Facebook Developer Garage to be an opportunity for his development team to recruit new, interested developers.

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