Facebook f8 Conference, July 23,
2008 -- Facebook today introduced the latest advancements to Facebook
Platform during its annual f8 developer conference, calling on its more
than 400,000 developers to connect their Websites with Facebook through
Facebook Connect, extend their applications to dozens of languages
worldwide, and make use of new developer resources to help them succeed.
"We opened Facebook Platform with a belief that community innovation
can give people the tools, and the power, to share and communicate in ways
that Facebook can't build on its own. We're humbled by what our developer
community has accomplished," said Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of
Facebook. "We're confident that the changes we're presenting today help
developers build more meaningful social applications that enable users to
share more information."
Facebook earlier this week released its new site design for users to
preview and test, which is being gradually rolled out to Facebook's more
than 90 million active users over the coming weeks. The changes announced
today, along with those launched earlier this week, leverage Facebook's
powerful feed system to give developers a new way to gain visibility and
help users share and discover more information.
Leveraging the Power of Feeds
"Across the Web, content creation has become easier and more immediate,
resulting in a continuous stream of information through what we call
'feeds'," said Zuckerberg. "The power of feeds on Facebook is their ability
to move you into a world where you receive relevant information in a social
context wherever you are on the Web."
The new site design emphasizes dynamic content and surfaces the most
recent and relevant information and activity through feeds, both on News
Feed and the Wall. For developers, the new site design enables even deeper
integration within the profile for their applications. By taking advantage
of the improvements with feeds on Facebook and the other new features,
developers can more efficiently distribute their applications and gain more
ways to engage meaningfully with users.
"We're confident that the new profile and integration points will give
entrepreneurs and developers even greater opportunities to build their
businesses and deliver on the promise of Facebook Platform," said Ben Ling,
director of platform program management, Facebook. "One goal of the new
site design is to align Facebook Platform with users' interests who will
see a new class of applications emerge that provide deeper engagement and a
better experience."
Making the Web More Social with Facebook Connect
Facebook announced that 24 Web sites and applications have joined its
efforts to make the Web more open and connected through Facebook Connect. A
developer 'sandbox' is now available so developers worldwide can start
working with Facebook Connect.
Facebook believes that enabling users to take their identity and
friends with them around the Web, while trusting that their privacy is
protected, makes the Web more open and connected. Facebook Connect allows
users to bring their Facebook account information, friends and privacy to
any third party website, desktop application or device.
Digg, Six Apart, and Citysearch were featured live during Zuckerberg's
keynote today demonstrating their planned implementations of Facebook
Connect. Facebook Connect will be generally available to users in the fall.
"Digg surfaces the best content on the Web as voted on by its community
of 26 million," said Kevin Rose, founder of Digg. "Facebook Connect will
help us promote more conversations on Digg by giving Facebook's 90 million
users an opportunity to sign-in to Digg with their Facebook accounts and
become part of the active Digg community. This allows both Facebook and
Digg users to more easily share the content they care about with the people
they care about."
With Facebook Connect, users benefit from the following features:
- Trusted Authentication - easily authenticate into partner sites using
their Facebook account
- Real Identity - leverage their real identity across the Web in a
trusted environment
- Friend Linking - take their friends with them wherever they go,
enabling trusted social context anywhere on the Web
- Dynamic Privacy - assurance that the same privacy settings users have
set up on Facebook will follow them wherever they decide to login
throughout the Web
- Social Distribution - share actions on partner sites with their friends
back on Facebook through feeds
Additional planned participants at launch include: Amiando, CBS.com,
CNET, CollegeHumor, Disney-ABC Television Group, Evite, Flock, Hulu,
Kongregate, Loopt, Plaxo, Radar, Red Bull, Seesmic, Socialthing!,
StumbleUpon, The Insider, Twitter, Uber, Vimeo and Xobni.
Expanding Facebook Platform Internationally
As a result of the worldwide success of Facebook's translation system,
the company has opened up the Translation Application to any developer
using Facebook Platform. Beginning today, any Facebook developer can make
their application available in any of the 20 languages that are currently
available on Facebook, with 69 more coming soon.
Developers can now access the Translation Application to either
translate their applications themselves, or open up translation of their
application to Facebook users around the world, who will work together to
define it in their native languages.
This innovative approach combines the passion of Facebook users with
technologies that are systematic and manageable. The Translation
Application enables developers to get high-quality, fully-translated
applications in front of users, no matter where they live or what language
they speak -- much faster than ever before, and without ever having to pick
up a dictionary.
"Through Facebook's international platform, the possibilities are
endless for both developers and users," said Chamath Palihapitiya, vice
president of growth, Facebook. "With no language barriers to break through,
developers can take the stage with an even larger audience of users from
all over the world, and users will have access to even more great
applications than ever before built by the world's best developers."
Helping Developers Succeed
When Facebook Platform launched in 2007, it gave developers the
opportunity to create applications that are deeply social and meaningful to
users. More than 400,000 developers and entrepreneurs from 160 countries
have signed up and developed applications. For the next phase of Platform,
Facebook has focused on ensuring that developers have the resources and
incentives they need to build applications that deliver on the vision of
Facebook Platform.
Facebook launched four new and expanded developer programs and
resources:
1) Great Apps Program
Facebook's Great Apps program rewards applications that deliver value
to users and advance the Facebook Platform vision. Great Apps
(http://developers.facebook.com/greatapps.php) embody Facebook's guiding
principles for social applications through their meaningful, trustworthy
and well-designed user experiences. Great Apps will gain greater visibility
on Facebook, earlier access to new features and more feedback from
Facebook. Facebook will open the Great Apps selection process to developers
in September.
Facebook is excited to announce iLike and Causes as the inaugural Great
Apps. "Facebook Platform provided iLike with an unprecedented opportunity
to become one of the world's leading online music services in just over a
year," said Ali Partovi, CEO of iLike. "I'm delighted that Facebook is
committed to recognizing the apps that are most appreciated by users. We
expect the Great Apps program to have a very positive impact on the entire
Facebook Platform ecosystem."
"The Causes application enables socially-conscious Facebook users to
unlock the power of their social network in order to raise money and
awareness for the causes they care about," said Sean Parker, chairman and
co-founder of Causes. "With more than 100,000 causes created by 12 million
Facebook users, we've had remarkable success building user trust and value
on Facebook and we're excited to join the Great Apps program."
2) Application Verification
Facebook is introducing the Application Verification
(http://developers.facebook.com/verification.php) program which is designed
to offer extra assurances to help users identify applications they can
trust -- applications that are secure, respectful and transparent, and have
demonstrated commitment to compliance with Platform policies. Verified
applications will benefit from added visibility on Facebook. The program is
a complement to Facebook's ongoing policy enforcement to keep the Platform
ecosystem robust, and will be open to developers in September.
3) Expanded fbFund Competition
In an effort to grow the Facebook ecosystem, fbFund
(http://developers.facebook.com/fbfund.php) was introduced last year to
provide resources to developers, by eliminating some of the challenges of
starting a company. As part of a new competition, Facebook will award
nearly $10 million in non-recourse grants to the top 25 applications. In
addition to the Facebook judging committee, this year users will test
applications and vote on their favorites after the first round deadline of
August 29, 2008.
Winners from the first fbFund competition were announced today and
include: ConnectedWeddings, CourseFeed by Classtop, GoalCamp, HotBerry,
J2Play, LuckyCal, MyListo, Podclass, Trazzler, and Zimride Carpool App.
4) New Developer Website
Facebook is introducing a new website for Facebook Platform.
Improvements include better navigation and cleaner access to the blog, wiki
and forum to encourage community involvement. Facebook will also start
highlighting social, meaningful and trustworthy application case studies.
Facebook
Founded in February 2004, Facebook's mission is to give people the
power to share and make the world more open and connected. Anyone can sign
up for Facebook and interact with the people they know in a trusted
environment. Facebook is a privately-held company and is headquartered in
Palo Alto, Calif.
Facebook(R) is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc. Other names may
be trademarks of their respective owners.
SOURCE Facebook
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