I've been spending quite a bit of time recently (a little too much for my comfort) trying to keep up with all the new Facebook apps. Believe it or not, I think I've stumbled upon what could potentially become a killer app: Firefox!
Stay with me here.
Two years ago I was a bit struck by the fact that the Mozilla Add-ons community wasn't all that Web 2.0. This was supposed to be a revolution, and Mozilla was supposed to be spearheading it, right?! I had the realization then that Mozilla was missing a huge opportunity in not using the power of the network to spur adoption of third-party add-ons and increase awareness. And so it's remained until this past week.
Mozilla has created a new Facebook app called "Rock Your Firefox" that essentially takes advantage of the Facebook platform to give Firefox Add-ons the same viral effect of Facebook apps. This is great news for Firefox developers, and it's also great for the entire web ecosystem!
This application is basically a mirror of the Mozilla Add-ons Directory that let's users browse/search through Firefox Add-ons and save them as favorites to share with their Facebook friends. After you have your favorites selected, they show up in a widget on your Facebook profile, they also show up on your Mini-Feed and consequentially the News Feed of many of your friends (this is what makes it viral) and then you can also browse through the Firefox Add-ons that your friends have as Favorites.
Naturally my mind went towards where this app could go next. To put it simply, I see this Facebook app as a potentially significant piece in what I see as the next generation browser experience. (Or at least a really really really useful feature!) What's missing from the equation is a Firefox extension with the following functionality:
- It should autodetect installed add-ons and update the Facebook app accordingly.
- It should be able to download and install add-ons based on the information stored in the Facebook app
- It should be fully integrated with the Firefox Add-ons UI
Given a Firefox extension with this functionality, the "Rock your Firefox" Facebook app would need some additional functionality for solid integration:
- It would need to differentiate between "Installed Add-ons" and "Favorite Add-ons"
- It would enable you to select which Add-ons the extension should bulk install by default.
- It should have privacy settings that you could set per Add-on.
For the individual user, this would make it dead simple to install all of your favorite extensions on a clean install of Firefox. In fact, why not forgo this hypothetical Firefox extension entirely and just build this functionality into the browser itself? Imagine opening up a fresh install of Firefox, and instead of having to tediously install all your extensions, being prompted for your Facebook login. Firefox would do the rest. And if your Facebook account is tied to a Firefox user profile, imagine going to someone else's computer, logging them out of Firefox, and logging in with your Facebook account. At this point all the extensions you depend on are installed and you're back in action! And let's not forget the social component that helps you share the browser experience with your friends!
Naturally, this killer(well, for me at least) functionality doesn't have to be tied to Facebook. I imagine that "Rock Your Firefox" will be ported to other "Social Utilities" as soon as what makes the Facebook Platform successful is replicated via other services. (Anybody care to place bets?) In which case, when you first log into Firefox, you will be prompted for your username and Social Utility of choice.
Such is my vision for Firefox 3 (or 4 maybe?) Come to think of it, I wonder if this could be tied into something like the Mozilla Coop project that we heard about a few months ago... Anybody at Mozilla listening? :)
