RIA Journal

As we move towards the new Facebook profile, one of our major goals is to
improve the quality of feed stories. We want users to have a sense of ownership of their Mini-Feed and trust in the stories that
are created on their behalf. Since applications make up such a large portion of feed content, our aim is to give developers a simple way
to publish rich feed stories with user approval.

With this goal in mind we are happy to announce the beta release of the feed forms, two new FBML primitives specifically
designed for creating quality feed stories. These forms provide a standard interface for user-approved feed stories within the flow of an application.

Multi-Feed form lets applications create social stories that are displayed in the feeds of a user and their friends. Whenever you ask
a user to enter friends within the flow of a canvas page, you can also request to publish interaction feed stories. This form creates
the potential for an entire new class of interesting stories, including tagging, gifts, and public messaging.

Feed form fills a similar need for publishing to a single user's feed. Instead of using the API to send stories, you can now change any
form on a canvas page into a publish form. This creates an inline feed preview with the story. Since these stories are trusted, they
are treated differently within feed and help us gauge an application's quality. We strongly encourage developers to use this method for
stories users create within a canvas page.

The technical specifications for the two new forms are
laid out in detail on the wiki. We're excited to see how you use these two new channels
and are happy to hear any ideas for how we can encourage great feed stories. If you have any questions or comments, send us an email at developer-feedback@facebook.com and put [feed forms] in the subject line.

Source: http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=91

Starting today, you can serve XML sitemaps off apps.facebook.com domain, and notify search engines about changes on your pages. Naturally, this works better for pages that display content without requiring logins.

The best way to showcase your Facebook application to search engines is to register your site with appropriate services:

• Google Webmaster Central
• Yahoo! Search Site Explorer
• Live Search Webmaster Center
• Ask.com Help for Webmasters

Each one of those services allows you to register a sitemap that lists out all URLs that search engines might find relevant. Publishing a sitemap does not guarantee inclusion in the index, but it does facilitate it for pages not linked anywhere else on the Web. Facebook will serve any file with ".xml.gz" extension without interpreting it through FBML parser.

When your pages are updated, you can additionally notify search engines about this change by issuing GET requests to these URLs:

• Ping Google (more)
• Ping Yahoo! (more)
• Ping Live (more)
• Ping Ask (more)

Source: http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=92

The default behavior for an iframe-based canvas page is for it to be "smartsized",
in which the iframe fits the remaining space on the page. This option does not allow
the application itself to control or change the size of the iframe. For example,
the smartsize attribute does not help an application that wants the canvas page
to fit the content of iframe when the size of the content itself is not fixed.

To solve this issue and give developers more control on the size of the iframe element
on their canvas page, we added a new "resizable" attribute (that also applies to
the fb:iframe tag) that allows application developers to use JavaScript inside
an iframe to query and control the size of the iframe element that hosts it.

You can see a demo of an iframe-based application using this feature at this link.
You can learn more about this feature on the Facebook Developers Wiki at http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Resizable_IFrame.

The resizable option for iframes is supported in the updated Facebook JavaScript
client library. See this link
for more details.

Source: http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=93

As we mentioned
the other day, we're setting out to improve our profile design. Our goal is to make the profile simpler, relevant, and to give users a greater degree of
control.

Today we're going to give you the first look at the profile. We're still
iterating on the final design, so design elements and names can
change. However, these screen shots will give you a good idea of what
you can expect from the new design, showcasing some of the new additional
integration points.

• Expanded and interactive "Wall," where users can generate their own content, friends can write Wall posts, and applications can publish Feed
  stories
• Additional tabs on the profile, where users can feature their favorite
  applications
• Profile boxes, which appear in the narrow column, separate from the
  tabs
• Profile action links

Notice that the profile is wider and we're organizing the user's profile information into a series of tabs. The "Wall" tab displays everything from Feed stories (including application feed stories), to Wall posts, posted items, updated status messages and others. The recent activity on profiles is highly interesting information to users and we are relying on applications to provide stories that are meaningful and engaging.

The About tab is where users will keep their personal information, now in a
more structured way.

In this example, Photos has its own tab, and similarly, users can create
custom tabs for your applications. In this way, your applications will have
much greater prominence on a profile, nearly at the top of the page.

All profile boxes will appear in the narrow column of the profile. We're
providing other mechanisms for increasing distribution. And users can always
rearrange the order of their profile boxes in the narrow column.

Profile action links get displayed by default. More can appear, and their
appearance is based on user interaction with the related applications.

You can keep track of what's changed in the
href="http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Platform_Changes">Facebook Developer Wiki. We've also set up a Facebook Page, called
href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Facebook-Profiles-Preview/21073243776">Facebook Profiles Preview, where we're informing our users of the
upcoming changes. We encourage you to become fans of the Page. We'll be
sending weekly updates on the profile changes to fans of Facebook Profiles
Preview as well as posting new screen shots there.

Almost all of the existing FBML tags and API methods will continue to work.
In the coming weeks, we'll be releasing a few more API methods and FBML tags
that are specific to the new integration and distribution points. There
will be a transition period for you to adapt your applications to the new
design before we launch the redesign to users. We'll give you lead time and
existing functionality won't change immediately.

As always, we welcome your feedback. Send your comments or questions to
href="mailto:developer-feedback@facebook.com">developer-feedback@facebook.com. Please put [new profile] in the subject line.

http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=88

As part of our ongoing quest to improve Platform and communicate openly, we are going to hold a series of Developer Roundtable events at the Facebook offices in Palo Alto. You’ll meet the Platform team and other developers. You’ll have a chance to discuss developing Platform applications, best practices, and monetization strategies, and we’ll gather your feedback and feature requests.

The roundtables will take place once a month and will alternate between technical- and business-focused topics. If you are interested in attending a roundtable, please email
href="mailto:roundtable@facebook.com">roundtable@facebook.com with the following information:

• Relevant Contact Info (Name, Email, Phone #, etc)
• Title, Company
• Application Canvas Page URLs
• Number of Active Users
• A short paragraph describing why you think you could add value to the discussion

We will try and accommodate most if not all of the requests to attend these events over the next 10 months (and beyond) and will do our best to match you up with appropriate subject matter.

Your feedback is important to us. While we may not be able to accommodate every feature request or incorporate every suggestion, we will take your thoughts into account as we continue to improve Platform.

Our first roundtable will take place in late March and will focus on the profile redesign.

If you are interested in participating in or learning about additional Facebook events, including our Developer Garage program, please become a fan of the Facebook Platform Page for updates or check out the schedule on the Facebook Developer Wiki for a list of upcoming events.

http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=89

Last week we gave you the first look at how we're changing the Facebook profile. As we expected, we received some good feedback as well as requests for more details. Today we're presenting answers to some questions that were asked.

1. Will Facebook applications appear in the narrow column?
   Facebook applications won't appear in the narrow column by default, but users can add them there if they so choose.
2. How many applications will appear in the narrow column?
   By default, three applications will appear in the narrow column. The rest will appear in the extended profile, like they can today.
3. What are the width and height of the profile box in the narrow column?
   Profile boxes in the narrow column will continue to have the same width and padding as today, with a maximum height of 400 pixels.
4. On which tabs will the narrow column appear?
   The narrow column will definitely appear on the "Wall" tab. It will possibly appear on the About tab.
5. Will the narrow column appear on the application tabs?
   At this time, the narrow column will not appear on an application tab. This is to keep user focused on the selected application.
6. Will the About tab have profile boxes?
   Yes, up to five profile boxes can appear on the About tab. We'll provide two templates for formatting the boxes, one for lists and one for thumbnails with captions.
7. What is the width of About tab box?
   The About tab box is going to be 500 pixels wide. We're adding an additional 10 pixels of padding on the left side and 20 pixels of padding on the right.
8. Can applications go in the wide column?
   There are no profile boxes in the wide column of the "Wall" tab. However, there will be sections for applications in the wide column on the About tab. See the screen shot of the About tab. Note the section for the "My Best Friends" application (bear in mind that the design might change).
9. Will there be a general tab for all applications?
   While we aren't providing a tab for all applications, we are considering a tab on the user's Facebook Home page for application boxes.
10. What do I need to do to create an application tab?
    Application tabs will work like regular canvas pages. We'll release more information on integrating into application tabs soon.
11. How many application tabs can exist before they appear in the "more" section?
    We are currently deciding between two and four.
12. What is the width for the new application tabs?
    Application tabs will run the width of the page -- 903 pixels. We're adding an additional 20 pixels of padding on each side. The screen shot of the Photos tab should give you an idea of the dimensions of an application tab. (Note that the design of the Photos tab and of application tabs overall might change.)
13. How many application profile action links can appear?
    By default, three application profile action links will appear on the profile, but that can change depending on user behavior. There won't be a link to display more profile action links.
14. Are there going to be new API calls or FBML tags?
    Yes, we are changing the Platform API and creating new FBML tags. We will release more information about them very soon on this blog.
15. Why are you combining Wall and Mini-Feed on the "Wall" tab?
    The profile is a place where a user might catch up with a friend by reading a new Wall post, or by seeing a Mini-Feed story with pictures from a trip they just took. While the Wall and Mini-Feed may seem like two totally separate things, both can contribute towards telling a more complete story. The idea behind combining the Wall and Mini-Feed is to put all of the most important information in the same place, so users don't have to constantly search around to keep up with their friends. We've posted a screenshot detailing this on the Facebook Profiles Previews Page (become a fan of this Page so you can stay up to date on the improved profile). The new "Wall" now consists of Wall posts as we currently know them, but also stories users once saw in their Mini-Feeds. This allows friends to write on a user's wall, directly after other content they might find interesting. The goal is to make a cleaner, more relevant Wall that compiles the most relevant information about the people a user cares about. And given the Wall's popularity with users, we are working out a way to easily filter down to just Wall posts from a friend's profile.
16. What is the timeframe for us to make these changes?
    We plan to release the updated profile to our users in early April, 2008.

As always, we welcome your feedback. Send your comments or questions to developer-feedback@facebook.com. Please put [new profile] in the subject line.

http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=90

Hola!

Yesterday, we announced the release of Facebook in Spanish. We are really excited to bring Facebook to a whole new set of users in their native language. In the coming months, we plan to continue internationalizing and make similar releases in many other languages.

We took a neat approach to translation. In addition to shipping some of strings off to be translated, we used FBML to wrap all of our static text. When a bilingual user comes to the site, she sees untranslated English strings marked with a red link and can translate them inline. Using this approach, users were able to translate the entire site in less than a month.

We chose this method to make it easy for platform applications to internationalize. Soon developers will be able to use the same method that we used internally to work with users to translate their apps. While this system is not yet available, we wanted to assure developers that bringing your apps along is a top priority of internationalizing.

In the meantime, we have a quick way for applications to integrate with users in new locales. We are now sending a param "fb_sig_locale" to all canvas pages that signals the locale set for the visiting user. Feel free to use this to begin localizing.

http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=79

The feedback-based allocation reporting mentioned in last week's developer blog post is now available under the Insights statistics page. There are two tabs:

1. Allocations: Shows the current number of notifications that can be sent on behalf of a user per day.
2. User Response: Shows the rates that users have marked notifications as spam and hid notifications over the past 7 days.

Though these numbers are exposed to developers, the limits will not be turned on till later in the week. Tomorrow night we will be providing an API function that provides an application with its current allocation. It will return the same number seen in the Insights tab.

http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=80

After speaking at conferences and talking with developers on IRC, we've discovered that most developers are excited about our Data Store API, but are unsure of how to get started. The documentation on the wiki is detailed, but the number of function calls can be overwhelming to a developer unfamiliar with this new API. To address this issue, I created a new tool during our last Hackathon -- the Data Store API Admin tool.

The Data Store API Admin tool feels a bit like phpMyAdmin so that many of you would feel right at home. In it you'll find a list of objects, their properties, and associations, each with simple forms to help you get started. Also, we included an FQL query tool so you can browse through your data in an easy, visual way.

To access the Data Store API Admin tool, go to the Facebook Developers app, click the My Applications link at the top, then click the DataStoreAdmin link for the appropriate app.

What's more, you can also use our new JavaScript API library to get your application data from the Data Store API.

We'll keep adding more to this tool as time goes on. Thanks for your feedback!

http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=81

We at Facebook are committed to fostering a positive environment for Facebook Platform. As Platform has quickly grown over the past few months we've noticed that, in order to provide the best experience to our users, we need to clarify and expand our policies, as well as provide some guidance on how to create good, engaging applications.

We've just published some articles on the Facebook Developers Wiki describing Platform policy and the escalation of responses we can take when our policies and Terms of Service are violated. This policy statement is a living document that will occasionally be updated. We will inform you of any changes via the Developer blog or Platform Status feed (both are located in the Facebook Developer app), but please keep an eye on the policy document to make sure you're in compliance.

We also created a series of best practices that will help you develop, promote and monetize successful applications.

We encourage you to read the Platform Policy and Escalation Procedures document so you can understand our policies and how they relate to the Facebook Developer Terms of Service.

We hope we've cleared things up for you. If you have further questions, please email us at developers-help@facebook.com with [policy questions] in the subject line.

http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=82