Finished 1%, really is just beginning

Mike Vernal, the Facebook engineering Director, Maik Venard the Wired magazine at Facebook headquarters this week, explaining why Facebook's platform favors long content, why it wants to understand the overtones of user status updates, and why mobile social apps may be " The next wave of great innovation. "

Can you give me a quick overview of how you're going to use the Facebook platform?

We try to help users sort out all the things they care about and relate to them, and then help people find things through their friends.

What's the progress?

Finished 1%, really is just beginning.

This means that there are still a lot of opportunities to develop new apps, even though many startups seem to be doing it.

I think that's absolutely true. I really understand that mobile social application development is the next big wave of innovation. These apps allow you to carry around, share things on the spot, and find things through friends, which is really fascinating.

Facebook officially released an open Atlas of the platform in January. How is the development of this year?

We've always had a vibrant game ecosystem with lots of links, news and similar content to share. We provide developers with many tools, such as the "Like" button and Facebook login. You can take your friends to apps and websites, but the way data is shared back to Facebook is a little bit more mundane, and it could have been deeper or richer.

The diversity of applications has increased dramatically over the past year. The most popular apps are no longer limited to games, such as Instagram with picture-sharing classes, Spotify and Rdio for music-sharing, video-type Netflix and Hulu, fitness Nike and Endomondo.

I tried twenty or thirty new apps last weekend. Almost every one of them can be logged in with a Facebook account. After you've logged in, you'll be able to play with them and then share the content back to Facebook in a variety of ways. It wasn't like that a year ago.

Do you find it necessary to constantly adjust the system to solve the problem of garbage application?

We certainly have some preference for lengthy content. The more time you spend on content, the more valuable it is likely to be.

When we develop an open atlas, we are more focused on discovering things. We think it would be nice if you could find out which articles your friends are interested in? We find that people like to be able to tell stories in a more personalized way. A book that took 5 hours to read or a movie that took 2 hours to watch is certainly more valuable than a video clip that took only 30 seconds to read or 20 seconds to see.

How does this platform develop more comprehensively?

The biggest development is shifting from desktop to mobile. We have been overhauling our mobile platform this year. What I want to say is that most of our open Atlas partners are based on phones or tablets.

Is there a more interesting difference between desktop and mobile usage patterns?

Mobile applications are used more frequently every day. Many of the shares we see are done on the spot rather than in the aftermath. I have a good example: when I was at home for Thanksgiving, I watched a lot of movies with my sister and brother-in-law. Every one I read, my brother-in-law will sign on Facebook. His status update is only the film name. For example, one day is "Argo", the next day is "Skyfall".

This shows that he is eager to share with others and remember those moments. But the problem is, his post is completely unstructured, only "Argo" such a word. Later, when I want to know what movie to see, I find it difficult to know who I know who have just seen the film, and then ask their comments, it is difficult to see what the best friends see is the type of film. Next year we should be able to make this status update more and more structural.

What is the Facebook platform worth looking forward to next year?

There are two points to change. First of all, we hope that people will tell the story of life more plump. Back to my brother-in-law's example, our goal now is to make those stories much more exciting than what you see in the news. You can easily watch the Argo trailer, find theaters and buy tickets.

Also, let more and more people tell the story, we have to make it easier to find what you are interested in. When you receive an E-book reader at Christmas, you can easily find a few books worth buying. When you travel, it's easy to find out where your friends like to go.

Facebook launched app Center in June to guide people to use mobile apps and desktop apps that integrate Facebook. How's the progress?

In the desktop area is really very successful. It has become one of the most popular ways for people to find and install applications. It's also valuable in the Mobile world. But the difference is that people on mobile devices spend a lot of time scrolling through dynamic messages. We find that displaying applications in dynamic messaging is most helpful in discovering applications, so we're more focused on that.

Will APP center grow to the size of an Apple or Android App store?

I don't think app center is antithetical to Apple or Android App store. Instead, we want to help people to share things that are important to them and to help people find interesting things through their friends. We bring about 180 million clicks per month for the App store. This complements them.