Facebook.com opens up facebook platform similar to ning.com

Read about the new developer environment for Facebook.com on cnn.com. I can't tell yet if this is Facebook.com adopting some of the Ning.com philosophy of "create your own social network" or if it's just a giant widget factory on steroids.

No longer will Facebook consider itself merely another social network. Instead it is becoming a technology platform on which anyone can build applications for social computing... Outsiders can now develop Internet services on Facebook's infrastructure, he explains, that will have full access to all its members.

developer.facebook.com has more info on the facebook platform. And of course, you have to love that it's built on PHP.