Dave Winer reported earlier today a couple of things, none of which we’re sure are too new. Facebook has added RSS feeds to friends’ Status Updates and Posted items (look out for the subscribe box in the bottom-right side). Is this a sign that Facebook’s truly opening up their Data feeds?
In its initial launch, Facebook’s Data feeds were subject to much controversy, mostly from users who found it too busy and overwhelming. It’s since grown into Facebook’s 30 million+ user base and is questionably its most popular feature — being a great way to keep up with friends’ lives, happenings, and trends. Of course, the success has caused developers to crave for an open way to build upon it and put it to greater use within its Platform and beyond.
The RSS feeds also officially put Facebook in competition with Twitter and blogging services. Users will now be able to subscribe to friends’ status updates using various services and posted items in the form of a river-of-news blog. So, now the question is, which cool application is going to make the best use of Facebook’s offering? Additionally, as Dave Winer asks: how far will they go? Is this the end of Facebook’s openness, or the start of it?
On a sidenote, I couldn’t help but envision in detail how the PHP code for those pages looks like, you know, after the exposé. Is this the case with every other PHP developer out there? 
