In a developer conference today in Singapore, online social networking giant Facebook made its strongest indication yet of its intention to better engage developers in Asia and Southeast Asia. Facebook, which flew in some 13 executives and staff for f8 Singapore organized by Asia technology community and blog e27, recently expanded the function of its sales and marketing office in Singapore to include developer relations for the region.
Facebook‘s Singapore-based Head of Platform Partnerships Alexander Kleinberg – who was most recently Google’s Head of Business Operations, Global Partnerships – revealed that he has been traveling in the region in an effort reach out to developers to build applications upon the social networking site’s platform for a “more social web”. Kleinberg also indicated that he has been really impressed by the quality and quantity of developers in Singapore (although some might disagree), and also said that the Indonesian startup and developer scene is one to watch.
Ethan Beard, Facebook‘s Director of Partnerships, added that the company’s platform is increasingly becoming a critical part of its growth strategy. “We want to help social companies become big, and big companies to become social,” Beard says of Facebook‘s intention in growing developer relations here in Asia. He adds that their key charter is “to help drive traffic to their partners’ applications”.
The executives also stressed that the company view f8 events as a supplement to the highly successful grassroots-led Facebook Developer Garages that has sprung up all over the world, and are not positioned to replace them.
During the developer conference, Facebook unveiled to some 80 Singapore and Southeast Asia-based developers more details of its Open Graph protocol, which is currently in a beta stage.
