Ever since Facebook began to dominate headlines, people have been criticising their "closed wall" approach to the web by not allowing developers to build apps on other sites that can use the network's data, and by not joining Google's OpenSocial project.

“… Users will be able to access their friends and media across all the applications, social networking sites and widgets that implement the design into their systems …”

Facebook recently disapproved of Plaxo's Pulse, an app that allows you to link your Plaxo and Facbook accounts and grab all of your friends' information including (the bit that Facebook really rejected to) email addresses. Facebook responded to Plaxo by banning people (mostly reporters trying out the new system) from Facebook entirely.

The biggest surprise of this announcement is clearly the unexpected (and sudden) willingness of Facebook to progressively become more open.

Will this change anything in the near future? Who knows, but it can only be a good thing if the major companies are (at least) appearing to work together on more open, flexible standards.

This move will surely help to make several more major players think about becoming open.

The open web is the future.