The redesigned Facebook Platform now lets Website publishers build a bridge between their content and users' Facebook information. This includes a Like button available as one of Facebook's Social Plugins and the use of the Open Graph Protocol, which allows any Web page to become part of Facebook's social graph. More than 75 partners are launching Social Plugins of some sort immediately, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he expects these partners will serve more than 1 billion Like buttons. Zuckerberg also unveiled an integration between Docs.com from Microsoft FUSE Labs and Facebook.
Facebook April 21 unveiled a
Facebook
Platform redesigned to let Website publishers build a bridge between their
content and users' Facebook information.
The new Facebook Platform, which CEO Mark
Zuckerberg and other executives unveiled at the company's F8 developer's
conference in San Francisco April
21, supports Social Plugins.
These plug-ins require only one line of HTML or XFBML (Facebook markup
language) tags to let publishers port Facebook's social graph to their Website.
The plug-ins include the widely reported-on
Like button, which lets users share Website content they enjoyed.
An Activity Feed plug-in shows users what their friends have liked on a Website.
The Recommendations plug-in gives users content suggestions from the site.
Finally, the Facepile plug-in shows profile pictures of the user's friends who
have already signed up on a Website.
More than 75 partners are launching Social Plugins of some sort today, and
Zuckerberg said he expects these partners will serve more than 1 billion Like
buttons.
Zuckerberg also introduced the Open Graph Protocol, which allows any Web
page to become part of the Facebook social graph.
Specifically, when a user clicks a Facebook Like button on a Website enabled
by the Open Graph Protocol, the
publisher will gain a link from the user's profile, the ability
to publish to the user's News Feed, inclusion in search on Facebook and
analytics.
Facebook partners for the Open Graph that feature the Like buttons will push
to Facebook information about items their visitors liked-for example, bands
that users liked from Pandora, local businesses such as restaurants from Yelp
and movies from IMDB.com. Information about objects users click on will appear
in users' profiles as items they endorse.
"If I'm on IMDB and I visit 'The Godfather' and I click 'Like,' it's
going to go to my Facebook stream just like shares do today," said
Facebook Director of Products Bret Taylor, adding that IMDB information from
about the film will go into the movie section of his profile.
When a friend visits Taylor's profile
and hovers over that movie link he's going to see that it came from IMDB and
will be able to connect to that exact IMDB page with a Like button from
Facebook.com.
The idea is to help publishers better connect with the people coming to
visit their Websites so they can place more relevant content in front of visitors
based on their interests.
"We're building toward a Web where the default is social,"
Zuckerberg said. "Every application and product will be designed from the
ground up to use real identity and friends."
Zuckerberg also unveiled an integration between Docs.com from Microsoft FUSE
(Future Social Experiences) Labs and Facebook. Specifically,
FUSE Labs created Docs, a new Facebook application built on the
emerging Microsoft Office 2010 that lets the more than 400 million Facebook
users create and share Office documents directly with their friends.
Finally, Taylor said Facebook
has simplified its Graph API for Facebook
Platform to make all objects and APIs accessible via URLs.
Perhaps even more exciting for standards junkies is that Facebook has
adopted OAuth 2.0, an authentication and authorization protocol developers will
use to connect to Facebook Platform. OAuth 2.0 is already used by Google,
Twitter, Yahoo and others.
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