What a good way to say it 

Commenter upsidedown stopped by the chat box to remark on my post on day one of the Facebook API, wondering if they got it backwards. I like the labels "inside-out" and "outside-in" for characterizing which direction the information flows.

sounds more like facebook has it "outside-in". inside out is definitely the way to go -- look at how the embeddability of YouTube videos allowed that incredible YouTube-MySpace synergy to happen ...

Related:

- Dave's post from a few days ago predicting an inevitable unbundling of the pieces that make up social networking.

- Read/Write Web on the Random House widget, a clever book marketing widget that I think serious readers would put on their blogs. It's inside-out, but Alex likens it to Facebook's "opening up," which is not -- not inside-out and not really open. Funny to realize how a frankly commercial widget can be more truly social than a feature trapped in a sequestered platform.

So take that, you old poo-poo head 

The blogosphere really went bananas over F8, the Facebook platform and API, eager to call it "open" because the developers said so. When the mainstream media and other naysayers whine about bloggers who mock and riducule, I think they overlook the mirror image of the negativism -- the equal propensity to rave enthusiastically about issues and products. It all balances out, but I guess some people have a problem with all that raw emotion.

Sometimes I think when folks look down their noses at blogs, they're not objecting to amateurism so much as they think this is just not the way grownups who publish information are supposed to conduct themselves. It's childish to be informal, silly, partisan and wear your heart on your sleeve.