Parakey and Facebook - Brash Youthful Vision and Enthusiasm

Facebook Acquires Parakey. Below is information from the Parakey Website.


"What is Parakey?

Parakey is a platform for building applications that merge the best of the desktop and the Web. Like desktop applications, these applications work offline, offer more privacy than pure websites, run quickly, and integrate with your computer and its devices. But like Web applications, they are also more creative, visually alluring, accessible from anywhere and potentially accessible by anyone. In short, Parakey apps are designed to be both useful and social, a combination that is too rare today.

Parakey is building not just the platform but also its first set of applications. We enjoy programming, but ultimately we started this company to make computers better for average people who turn to technology for convenience, not...adventure. When people need to call their "computer friend" in 2007 to install a program, scan a document, burn a CD or show a picture to a friend, there is a problem. Fixing it will take time and the patience to sit down with users and understand them."

So what does this mean to the Facebook community of the future? For the member of Facebook, a parakey acquisition signals even further that Facebook sees itself as a platform, not just an application or a social network. It seems to be following the lead of Mark Benioff and Salesforce.com by allowing development to take place on a platform it owns and builds on the web - Software as a Service. (SaaS).

These strategies may be significant as thousands of applications are developed on a proprietary platform, it will be more difficult for the members to leave. The amount of development from individuals to larger companies will continue to provide new value almost on a daily basis for at least the next 12 to 18 months.

Facebook executives seem to also believe that they need to move beyond applications appealing to the "college crowd" such as sending gifts, giving Gold Stars and playing games, and allow for development of more serious applications with long term utility (stickiness) as well. This statement: "Parakey apps are designed to be both useful and social, a combination that is too rare today." is important. It recognizes that there is a gap for applications affecting productivity.

The idea that the founders of Parakey want to keep computing simple also appeals to the mass market approach of Facebook. This seems to be in the same line of thinking of Steve Jobs. Many of the members of social networks are individuals, not companies with limited resources for computer support. Future models of working predict that "virtual companies" and "project teams" will continue to populate the world and there still is not a suite of products to allow these teams to function in a virtual environment.

Parakey says on its website opening "Giving the Computer the Bird". This fearless, creative vision from a youthful team may bring changes to computing which may affect how individuals and teams work in the future.