????馬克?扎克伯格于上周四在Facebook年度開發者大會f8上登臺亮相，引起數千名狂熱信徒的歡呼和尖叫。他們絕大多數都是筆記本不離手的小伙子（當然也有少數姑娘）；同時，收看視頻直播的觀眾數則超過10萬人。短短幾年前，f8還默默無聞，只是部分合法黑客圈子里的小聚會，不過它如今已經成為互聯網的朝圣地，吸引著一切有志參與構建互聯網未來基礎設施的人。

????這幾年發生了什么變化？上屆f8于一年半前召開，當時，“喜歡”（like）按鈕首次亮相。如今，Facebook用戶數猛增了40%，達到7.5億人。市場調研機構eMarketer預計Facebook的收益將增長1倍，達到42.7億美元。扎克伯格儼然已經成為了這個時代的羅伯特?摩斯（美國著名建筑師——譯注）。他構建的不僅僅是互聯網的操作系統，互聯網的組織方式，更是互聯網本身。

????不出所料，扎克伯格在會上揭曉了一系列令人眼花繚亂的功能，包括：全新改版的個人檔案，它現在被稱為時間線（Timeline）；將應用程序嵌入Facebook用戶體驗的全新途徑；以及加強版的“社交圖景”（social graph）功能，也就是網絡版的個人關系圖，用戶可以借此繪出自己與其他人關系的示意圖。至于最重要的，恐怕要數社交圖景能讓Spotify等音樂服務以及Netflix這類流媒體網站更加緊密地將其業務嵌入到Facebook中。

????扎克伯格稱：“想像一下我們表達個人生活的方式。如果最初的Facebook只是（一段對話）的開頭5分鐘，那么我今天所展的則是這段對話余下的部分，也就是長達幾個小時的深入、精彩的交流；而下一步的流媒體功能（stream）則可以將呈現的對話時長延長到15小時。”實際上，Facebook有望成為我們的數字生活剪貼板，而有朝一日，它能最終成為我們的生活博物館。

????扎克伯格面對的是一大幫群情激昂的開發者，后者將f8念作“fate”（意為“命運”），這可不是在開玩笑。如果扎克伯格的發言讓人覺得信心滿滿，甚至過于張狂，以至于近乎狂妄，我們不妨看看他一貫的兩步走戰略：第一步，Facebook發布重大改版和新功能。隨后，用戶大呼Facebook違規，通常是抱怨隱私受到侵犯。Facebook最終撤銷計劃、做出調整，然后我們也就消停了。但無論如何，Facebook還是會不動聲色地調整、推出新功能。

????早在上周初，就有一些人對新聞訂閱服務（newsfeed）的改版表示不滿，不過他們應該銘記2006年的教訓。當時，初出茅廬的首席執行官扎克伯格首次推出了新聞訂閱服務。Facebook上一個名叫“反Facebook新聞訂閱學生同盟”的群組招攬了多達74萬名會員；此外，還有一家網站呼吁用戶抵制Facebook，停用該社交網絡一天。當時，扎克伯格被迫發出了平生第一封道歉信并承諾調整隱私策略。但他并未放棄這項核心業務，它最終成為社交網絡的基石。現在，恐怕這項服務已經是行業標準了。至少到目前為止，扎克伯格強迫我們使用分享工具的意圖已經奏效。

????Mark Zuckerberg took the stage today at f8, Facebook's sort-of-annual developers' conference, to the screaming affirmation of thousands of laptop-toting fanboys (and also a few women) and a live-streaming audience that surpassed 100,000. What began a few years back as a fringe festival for legit hackers has become ground zero for anyone interested in helping build the infrastructure of tomorrow's Internet.

????What's changed? A year and a half after the last f8, where the "like" button debuted, Facebook has increased its users 40% to 750 million and eMarketer estimates it will double revenues to an estimated $4.27 billion. Zuckerberg has become the Robert Moses of his generation, building out not just an operating system for the web or a way to organize it -- but the web itself.

????As expected, Zuckerberg unleashed a dizzying number of announcements: He introduced a redesigned profile called Timeline; a new way to bring applications into the Facebook experience; and, an evolved version of the "social graph" -- the web of personal relationships that users map out by connecting to each other. Perhaps most significant, the social graph lets businesses like music service Spotify or streaming site Netflix (NFLX) more deeply integrate their services into Facebook.

????"Imagine expressing the story of your life," Zuckerberg explained. "If the original Facebook was the first five minutes [of a conversation] and the stream was the next 15, what I want to show you today is the rest--the next few hours of a deep engaging conversation." Expect Facebook, in effect, to become our living digital scrapbook and even, eventually, perhaps our fossil.

????Zuckerberg spoke to an overflowing mass of entranced developers who aren't kidding when they pronounce "f8" as "fate." If his announcements seemed confident and disruptive enough to border on arrogance, consider that we've seen this two-steps-forward routine before: First, Facebook releases numerous significant redesigns and new features. Then, users cry foul, often voicing concerns over privacy. The company, finally, pulls back on its plan and makes tweaks while we all settle down and adjust, building out the new features quietly anyhow.

????Anyone complaining about the redesign of the newsfeed earlier this week would do well to remember 2006 when a more youthful CEO rolled it out in the first place. A Facebook group called "Students Against Facebook Newsfeed" attracted 740,000 members and a website called for a daylong boycott of the site, causing Zuckerberg to issue his first letter of apology and alter privacy settings. But he didn't back down on the core feature and it became the backbone for the social web. Now, the newsfeed might as well be an institution. And so far, Zuckerberg's mad impulse to force feed us sharing tools has worked.