I recently decided to take a different approach to meeting people by not adding them as friends on Facebook until I feel like I’m really friends with them. Sounds simple, right?

It was hard to resist the urge of finding out more about a person when their lives are not served to you on a silver platter. You find yourself googling them, checking if they are on twitter and what not, and then just surrendering to just giving them a call and going out for a coffee or beer.

From then on, something happens. You actually start to make a real connection that is not overpowered by assumptions of who that person is based on their shared media. You are actually getting to know them. Sharing stories and experiences with each other, in your own words and expressions, not a slideshow of pictures with no narrative, or a series of status updates that have no context.

The only drawback is not being able to share things online with those non-network friends. Inviting them to events reverts back to email, text messages and phone calls. Sharing interesting or funny video clips needs you to enter their email address, etc. All the things that were time consuming about the web that social media made quick and easy, are gone.

I’m going to stick with it, but I do know that at some point, i’m going to have to bring them in to the fold,. But by holding back, at least I know that I can really call them a friend.

When do you add a friend on Facebook? Do you wait a while before you add them, or do you do it immediately?

Well first off, it all depends on what the purpose of the application is, and who is the intended audience. You might be developing a game that is based on a user’s friends for engagement, or you just need to delegate the authentication system to ease registration. There are many reasons to develop within, or break out of the box, so lets look at the pros and cons, and some of the reasons you might do it either way.

Within Facebook: iFrame/FBML

Facebook has over 300 million users. It is a great source of users, who visit more than once a day and spend good amount of their internet surfing time on the social network. Most applications built within Facebook look to take a slice of that time, by further enhancing the social experience. Multiplayer games, sharing and collaborative applications are great examples.These applications tend to be short attention span applications, with very simple interfaces and involve quick actions a user can do in between browsing their friend shared lives.

Facebook also gives you direct access to its user base, through many of the hooks it has created in its platform. This is great for viral growth through notifications, status updates, news feed posts and invitations. Its very easy to get the word out to the rest of your users friends from within.

When it comes to FBML/FBJS (Facebook’s own markup language and javascript) or developing in an iFrame, I definitely prefer iFrames. Facebooks development language, though it makes for more of an immersive user experience, is slow and very limited. iFrames give you the flexibility to use any javascript framework you desire, and the speed of your code optimized on your server.

Breaking outside the box: Using Facebook Connect

Sometimes, the Facebook user base isn’t what your looking for. If you have  a very feature rich application, then it may be best to be a standalone application. Your users will be away from the distractions of Facebook notifications, email and chat, and can take the time to soak in your app. With Facebook Connect, you can allow your users to register easily with their Facebook credentials, and import all the contacts and information, but without the Facebook chrome and distractions.

Other than Facebook connect, there are many API based social networks and authentications systems available these days, each with its own niche features and following. Sometimes you want to be able to appeal to the broadest set of users, by making your social application integrated to more than one. Facebook for its social connections, Twitter for its status updates, LinkedIn for its professional contacts, and maybe Four Square for location based services. In this case, it would be best if your social application was outside of the eco-system and free to explore all avenues it needs.

Personal experience

In my personal experience, I tend to see Facebook as a place to develop small , fun and easy to user, viral applications that will grow like wild fire, but will have a short life span. When I set out to try and build a feature rich application, with unique niche features that need many integration points to other web API services, I try and build outside of Facebook but still leveraging it with Facebook Connect. Giving my users the flexibility with multiple authentications systems, and multiple social sharing avenues.

How do you set out to develop your next social based web application? Any suggestions on how to leverage the millions of users on all the social networks with API’s?