Monday, July 21, 2008
Very Important New Facebook App Procedure
As Facebook moves to the launch of the revised interface, the application adding/authorizing procedure is becoming more refined. New code is due to roll out today (Monday, 7/21).
As we knew, users will no longer add applications. Now, they will authorize applications to access their user data. The former post-add URL on the app setup page is now the post-authorization URL and behaves in the same way so you can use the callback at that URL to store allowable information.
Users can opt out of sharing their data either globally in their profile (for all apps) or by not authorizing an individual application.
The change is a simplification for the user; for apps it's pretty much the same except that the once ubiquitous require_add calls need to be removed. (This is discussed in the book because it's been known for a long time--require_login is the preferred code.)
The require_add call will remain because in the case of Facebook Pages (not users), the Page (via its administrators) will be able to add apps.
As we knew, users will no longer add applications. Now, they will authorize applications to access their user data. The former post-add URL on the app setup page is now the post-authorization URL and behaves in the same way so you can use the callback at that URL to store allowable information.
Users can opt out of sharing their data either globally in their profile (for all apps) or by not authorizing an individual application.
The change is a simplification for the user; for apps it's pretty much the same except that the once ubiquitous require_add calls need to be removed. (This is discussed in the book because it's been known for a long time--require_login is the preferred code.)
The require_add call will remain because in the case of Facebook Pages (not users), the Page (via its administrators) will be able to add apps.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
New Facebook Metrics Herald a New Era
New metrics were announced on June 17, and were provided in the new PHP library rolled out on June 25. These metrics provide 7- and 30-day metrics to use in evaluating an app.
A key part of the June 17 announcement is this paragraph: "These two metrics [7- and 30-day metrics] are very important for many applications, as not every good application has its users interacting with them on a daily basis. Rather, they can be just as engaging when a user interacts with them regularly every few days or even a few times a month. For example, applications with many users that highlight rich content like books or movies might not see as much relative activity on a daily basis as applications with higher daily usage, but their overall metrics increase when the activity window is extended over longer periods of time."
With the initial opening of Facebook platform, a land rush was on for daily users. Despite that hoopla, some of us pointed out that there was value--often tremendous value--in small-scale apps. While there's room for both big and small apps, I take the paragraph quoted here as a positive sign of maturation in the world of Facebook apps. There has always been some concern that this all might be a fad, but the growing number of apps with rich content and consistent but periodic use suggests that concern is less relevant than it might have been a year ago.
A key part of the June 17 announcement is this paragraph: "These two metrics [7- and 30-day metrics] are very important for many applications, as not every good application has its users interacting with them on a daily basis. Rather, they can be just as engaging when a user interacts with them regularly every few days or even a few times a month. For example, applications with many users that highlight rich content like books or movies might not see as much relative activity on a daily basis as applications with higher daily usage, but their overall metrics increase when the activity window is extended over longer periods of time."
With the initial opening of Facebook platform, a land rush was on for daily users. Despite that hoopla, some of us pointed out that there was value--often tremendous value--in small-scale apps. While there's room for both big and small apps, I take the paragraph quoted here as a positive sign of maturation in the world of Facebook apps. There has always been some concern that this all might be a fad, but the growing number of apps with rich content and consistent but periodic use suggests that concern is less relevant than it might have been a year ago.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Important Change to Facebook Feed Stories
Facebook now allows the HTML script tag in story templates. This has two important consequence. FIrst, you can include JavaScript in story templates. This significantly increases the functionality. The second change is that the delimiters for tokens in stories change from { and } to {* and *} to avoid confusion with JavaScript delimiters. Existing templates still work, but new ones require the new token syntax (and can take advantage of the HTML script tag).
More info here.
More info here.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Open Source Facebook
A year after opening the platform to developers, Facebook is opening much of the Facebook Platform code as well as the implementations of many methods and tags. The downloadable code is here.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Require-Login/Require-Add
Facebook is changing the recommended and default behaviors for require_login and require_add.
In part, this is because so many people are flummoxed when they try a new app for the first time and have to decide whether or not to add it before they have a chance to find out what it is.
In the book's example, we use require_login by default at the beginning (which is now the Facebook policy). This allows users to browse events and see their friends' events. We then use require_add to bottleneck the requests to update our database.
This will change with the new structure. Because we have used require_login wherever possible to improve our user experience, we only will need to adjust the require_add calls which we have already used sparingly. Specific features that require_add now will be moved as follows (remember, this is not final):
In general, these simplify the user experience and close some areas that allowed over-enthusiastic app developers to annoy users with excess email and the like. In a related area, forced invites are now a violation of the TOS unless they are required for functionality (an app requires a user to have a friend using the app so that they can interact) or the reason for the forced invite is made clear.
In part, this is because so many people are flummoxed when they try a new app for the first time and have to decide whether or not to add it before they have a chance to find out what it is.
In the book's example, we use require_login by default at the beginning (which is now the Facebook policy). This allows users to browse events and see their friends' events. We then use require_add to bottleneck the requests to update our database.
This will change with the new structure. Because we have used require_login wherever possible to improve our user experience, we only will need to adjust the require_add calls which we have already used sparingly. Specific features that require_add now will be moved as follows (remember, this is not final):
. Put a box in my profile: now an FBML button so the process is one step (you want a box? click here--not add the app or change the settings....THEN click here)
. Put a link in left nav. Left nav is gone, replaced by the Applications menu. When you're in an app's canvas page, you'll have a new bookmark feature which will add it to the Applications menu. You can rearrange the Applications menu from Edit My Applications.
. Publish stories in my News Feed. Enabled by default; disable in Edit My Applications. Stories of more than one line require user approval to send.
. Email notifications to users. Disabled by default. To enable it, users will need to click an interface element on your canvas page. This is not controlled by Edit My Applications.
. Add profile actions links. Deprecated: there are none in the new interface.
In general, these simplify the user experience and close some areas that allowed over-enthusiastic app developers to annoy users with excess email and the like. In a related area, forced invites are now a violation of the TOS unless they are required for functionality (an app requires a user to have a friend using the app so that they can interact) or the reason for the forced invite is made clear.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
News on the New Facebook Feed
Here is the new info on the Feed. We'll be updating one of the examples to use it this week. More news as it happens...
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Facebook Beta
Facebook is now planning to update the beta site each Monday. Developers (i.e., anyone who has added the Facebook Developer app) can access it to check out their code. We're checking the book examples to make certain that nothing breaks.
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