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 SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Facebook Inc. is encouraging other companies to sell products and create software for use on the popular social networking site, hoping to expand into an all-purpose destination on the Web.
The company's 23-year-old founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said Thursday the move was similar to what Microsoft Corp. did decades ago, when the relatively obscure software maker began encouraging third-party companies to write programs for its personal computer operating system. The strategy made Microsoft phenomenally profitable and helped turn founder Bill Gates — like Zuckerberg, a Harvard University dropout — into world's richest man.
"Until now, social networks have been closed platforms," Zuckerberg told about 750 programmers attending the company's first developer conference, dubbed f8. "We're going to end that."
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