How to get started with Facebook's new API?
Monday, April 27, 2009 by Dave Winer.
I'm reading the docs for Facebook's Open Stream API, with fascination. It sounds like an app can read and write to a user's stream, something like the way one writes an app to access the Twitter status stream. That's something I want to do! 
But... Say I want to write an app to access my own stream. What's the process? How do I give the app permission? What's the endpoint?
I assume FQL is Facebook Query Language? What do I do with that? I don't know.
I have a feeling these docs are written for developers who have been working with Facebook. I have never written any code to call Facebook's API.
If they want to go after Twitter developers (no one is going to like this, but it's the truth) read their developer docs, and make your API work like that.
I say no one is going to like that except Twitter developers of course. 
This is why I say that to compete with Twitter you must start with item #0 in the wishlist.
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Dave Winer, 53, pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in Berkeley, California.
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