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"Facebook will host its F8 developer conference this Wednesday, outlining its plans to further its influence across the web.  \nThose plans include a web-wide \"Like\" button and a social toolbar for your website, The New York Times reports.  \nIt's all part of Facebook's plan to follow you around the web and perhaps avoid the same fate as MySpace.\nThe Starbucks of Social Networks?\nPrevious social networks, you'll remember, were destinations.  As soon as Friendster became slow and unreliable, an exodus to MySpace began.  Once MySpace pages became bloated and unwieldy, the crowd hopped over to Facebook.  Zuckerberg is well aware of the threat: If you build a destination site, users will hop over to the next cool hangout in no time at all.  \nThat's why Facebook longs to become a sturdy platform. The more businesses rely on Facebook, the less likely it is to fail.  Zynga has already built a company valued at more than $1 billion using Facebook as a platform, and thousands of websites now use Facebook Connect for their login systems.  The toolbar and web-wide \"like\" button are the next phase; by providing more distributed services, Facebook becomes invaluable.  Credits, Connect, toolbars \u2014 these are all distributed plays that try to weave Facebook's social graph throughout the fabric of the web.\nRather than aiming to be the coolest bar in town \u2014 and losing its clientele when they leave for a hipper spot \u2014 Facebook plans to become the Starbucks of the web, with a Like button on every corner. \n\n\nFacebook's Achilles Heel\nLike all great plans, however, this one has a loophole: It relies upon Facebook owning the \"social graph,\" i.e. your network of connections (and, with the addition of \"Likes,\" your preference data too).  \nIt's in Facebook's interests to lock up your social graph, and it's in your best interests that it doesn't.  If Twitter, Google or another player were to make your social graph portable, you wouldn't need to store all of your information on Facebook \u2014 you could do whatever you please with it.\nPerhaps Facebook need not worry.  Most users neither understand nor care about social graph portability, and ideas like Facebook Connect, Likes and toolbars give just enough access to data to satisfy developers and all but the most discerning web user.  \nThe question that will decide Facebook's fate: Can it keep the social graph locked up forever?[img credits: retroart / Zazzle, jimg944 / Flickr, SoulRider.222 / Flickr]\n\n\nFor more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook\n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2010/04/19/facebook-like-launch/>