A mistake that many people make about Facebook is that they believe it is a merely a social network and they want to go build one. What Facebook is really building is a marketing platform. A broad horizontal marketing platform that will be as much a part of the marketing mix as Google is today. Perhaps more so because due to network effects. 

This week Facebook held a mobile event. The company announced that more than 200 million people are using Facebook mobile apps and use is growing very fast. They also announced their intention to make Facebook a cross platform mobile application. They broadened access to Facebook Places with write and search APIs. They announced Single Sign-On and Facebook Deals.

After the event Robert Scoble and others sat down with Mark Zuckerberg to discuss mobile and a wide variety of topics. If you are involved in social in any way you need to listen to this insightful interview.  You can do so below.

At the 8:00 mark Zuck discusses the Deals API.

At the 22:45 mark Zuck discuses how partners work with Facebook APIs.

At the 25:45 mark Zuck discusses the location ecosystem and how there will be room for many companies in the social/location space.

Money quote #1: "Eventually everything."

Money quote #2: "Social is kind of important."

Facebook is a marketing platform.  Build on it.