It says something about the sheer number of announcements Facebook has planned for its F8 conference in San Francisco that the biggest of them all – the firm's HTML5 platform Project Spartan – is rumoured to have been pulled so not to overshadow the rest of the event.

TechCrunch reports developers had originally been told to ready their Spartan projects for July.

Now, however, it's likely Facebook's app venture won't get its big reveal until October at the earliest, pushing its launch date back further.

Spartan slip

The suggestion is, to ensure Facebook's other fresh measures – which include the addition of new 'read', 'listened', 'watched' and 'want' buttons – aren't pushed out of the limelight, Project Spartan will be announced at its own, dedicated event.

It's expected social studios such as Zynga will make an appearance at the as-of-yet unconfirmed unveiling, though TechCrunch is also talking up the possibility of a developer focused Project Spartan hack event, originally due to take place the day after F8.

Project Spartan – which will likely adopt a different name for launch – remains something of a mystery itself, with Facebook yet to offer any official comment on what's believed will be an HTML 5 powered browser-based app marketplace.

[source: TechCrunch]