The recent announcement by Facebook, the social networking site which has attracted millions of users worldwide, to provide API access to programmers means that its inner workings can now be adapted by individuals or companies to provide additional features and services. This will potentially shake up the social networking market by creating new business opportunities and a huge captive market.

Companies are now falling over themselves to offer new features for Facebook users and to take advantage of the extensive connections available in the network - a good review of this whole process is covered by a recent Financial Times article. MySpace has also just announced that they will be offering similar services as they consider this move to be a significant threat to the future of their service.

The whole Web 2.0 market is developing at an incredible rate and looks to become the new battleground for companies to grow market share and new business from social activity on the web.