Fortune's David Kirkpatrick got a sneak peek of Facebook's new platform. No screenshots, but the social network's "F8" initiative is kicking off with offerings from Microsoft, the Washington Post newspaper, Digg, the tech news site, and iLike, the music recommendations engine. We don't know how compelling these third-party applications — sites within a site — will be. Facebook already, for instance, suggests news headlines popular at a college or another network, so I'm not clear what Digg will add. And new features on Facebook, such as the social network's own classifieds offering, will take time to become popular. Nevertheless, today's presentation, by founder Mark Zuckerberg, which begins about now, is heavily attended. If it's as easy to create mini-sites within Facebook as it is to build up a user profile, the interest will certainly be there. [Live video of the press conference, at webware.com.]

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