Do what we tell you, not what we say to the press

TIM FAULKNER — Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg's "social utility" (better than a network), was lauded with much fanfare last week for its new "open" developer platform. What Facebook doesn't want you to know is the strict control they intend to exert over their developers and their image. Now we can reveal their methods via a leaked guideline for developer press releases that you weren't supposed to see. Key excerpts with translation from PR speak to English after the jump.

We're warning you: do what we say or we will not market you. If you really embarrass us, you are out.

Pimp the "Platform." The press eats up that word and will induce comparisons to Microsoft and Google. Do not associate us with your application, we are so much bigger than your little application. We are just giving you an opportunity.

Marketing has created all new boilerplate.

Here's the new boilerplate. You will use it.

Better yet, just use this. We've done the work and (almost) trust you to fill in your company's name correctly.

We're sooo much better than that. You too. Well, at least, we are.

We need you, but not that bad.

We're so over that. We're the future. Bigger, better, different.

Mark's too busy talking to investors and the press to talk to you. Be happy with what you get. He was just going to repeat something about the "social graph" anyway.

You know who. Better not mention them. We know it's tough, we already slipped once ourselves... Just don't do it.

If you do everything we say and we still like you, you'll have the pleasure of being listed with 65 other companies to our benefit.