Facebook Inc. is encouraging other companies to sell products and create software for use on the popular social networking site, hoping to expand into an all-purpose destination on the Web.
The company’s 23-year-old founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said Thursday the move was similar to what Microsoft Corp. did decades ago, when the relatively obscure software maker began encouraging third-party companies to write programs for its personal computer operating system. The strategy made Microsoft phenomenally profitable and helped turn founder Bill Gates — like Zuckerberg, a Harvard University dropout — into world’s richest man.
