Facebook Developer

Platform Updates: Operation Developer Love

by M. Dorn on May 19, 2012 · 0 comments

Since last Wednesday’s update, we published a Developer Spotlight on Endomondo, announced the Action Spec Preview Tool, published Monitoring App Quality with Insights, and we published App Center Best Practices.

Updates on the Javascript SDK

In the upcoming weeks, we will be updating the Javascript SDK to limit the publicly exposed interface. This is part of an ongoing process to improve the reliability of the SDK.
The first step will include removing access to all internal properties and to methods prefixed with _.

If you are applying patches to the FB object, these will no longer take effect, nor will directly manipulating properties such as FB._https.
If you are currently relying on accessing internal properties, please refactor this so that you only rely on the publicly available (and officially supported) methods listed at https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/javascript/.

Note that all methods not listed as part of the public API might be subject to change or removal, and you should not use them directly.

Breaking Changes Effective on June 6, 2012

As announced on the Roadmap and Developer Blog, on June 6, 2012, the following changes will be in effect:

Removal of FBML
FBML apps will no longer work on Platform. All FBML endpoints will be removed. If your app is still utilizing FBML, please migrate before June 6 to avoid any issues.

XMPP Connections must be done over TLS
Apps connecting to Facebook’s XMPP service will be required to use STARTTLS for all connections. We will start rejecting unencrypted connections.

Bugs activity between Tuesday, May 8 and Tuesday, May 15

  • 174 bugs were reported
  • 27 bugs were reproducible and accepted (after duplicates removed)
  • 12 bugs were by design
  • 48 bugs were fixed
  • 49 bugs were duplicate, invalid, or need more information

Bugs fixed between Tuesday, May 8 and Tuesday, May 15

  • submit repro form failed
  • Uncaught Error: No polyfill registered for object connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js:24
  • Login-button not displaying for users logged into FB.com
  • Applications fail to load du to currupted jS script (Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token ILLEGAL)
  • Insights for my app not updating since 5/7/2012
  • parse is not defined in FB.JSON.parse
  • Submitting a post request to https://graph.facebook.com/<page_id>/photos returns “An unexpected error has occurred. Please retry your request later.”
  • Open graph action approved but still shows “pending”
  • Facebook Like comment overlay has z-order problems in IE compatibility view
  • Recommendation plugin does not display any recommendations
  • Application authentication error when uploading picture to ALBUM created using web application
  • Used gift notification URLs point to Apps and Games rather than app
  • Request Dialogs broken in IE9
  • Impossible to publish links on Facebook
  • FQL : some type values are not documented on STREAM table
  • The user_checkins and friends_checkins is not asked when someone want to install my app.
  • Timeline’s milestones not appearing in graph api’s feed or fql results
  • Broken link to “Post object” on stream.publish deprecation note
  • page_fans/lifetime shows zero for some days
  • Posting on event using graph api is not work as its need to work
  • Auth’d user cannot create video.watches action.
  • Cannot connect “read” action to built-in object type of “book”
  • NULL FQL impressions field since 12/15, and post insights completely missing
  • Auth Dialog Form: Tooltip and text box for Headline don’t agree.
  • Failed to Create new action for a recreated App
  • Search API not returning new results
  • Watch Action Type is busted
  • /me/cover brings an oauth (fql?) failure
  • Having major problems writing actions to open graph after possible GDP / permissions / auth change
  • Number of Likes from Insights API does not match Graph API or Page itself
  • Facebook Page Tab Application with top.location.href containing a URI fragment fails to re-load when you “LIKE” or “UNLIKE” the page
  • FB.Canvas.getPageInfo() callback not being called in HTTPS
  • FB footer below fluid canvas is too tall, needs cleaning up.
  • use_online_presence always returning ‘offline’ status
  • Insights Auth Dialog data incorrect
  • result of get order id is different from documentation
  • Offers callbacks are not populating the “data” field
  • Timezone less events – Twitter Bug
  • Can’t make Graph API calls on test users when using their auth tokens
  • Bug: Platform Policies Contact Us Link
  • Specific event name fails
  • Facebook Invite hangs for an user with about 4000 friends
  • Developer App will not allow “localhost” as App Domain
  • Missing posts in wall post feed
  • OG:image changes not being reflected in the Graph
  • Issues with Credits processing
  • Graph API photo upload to fanpage returns unknown error for specific images
  • RFE: No way to cancel a bug submission

Activity on facebook.stackoverflow.com between Tuesday, May 8 and Tuesday, May 15

  • 477 questions asked
  • 405 questions with a score of 0 or greater
  • 146 answered, 36% answered rate
  • 244 replied, 60% reply rate

Source: Facebook Developer Blog

Developer Spotlight: Tumblr

by M. Dorn on May 17, 2012 · 0 comments

Tumblr is a blogging platform that lets people post content – including images, videos, links and audio – to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Tumblr integrated Open Graph into their web and mobile apps to make it easy for people to post Tumblr content to their timelines.


Tumblr web app
Tumblr mobile app

What Tumblr Does Well

Tumblr associates a photo with each post published to timeline and news feed, creating more attractive stories for friends.

Tumblr uses the message property for personal messages on the Post, Reblog and Reply actions to show more relevant content to friends.

Tumblr provides clear messaging about what activity is posted to timeline and simple controls to help users determine what is shared on Facebook.

Implementation Profile

Actions – Objects

  • Post – Entry, Photo, Photoset, Video, Audio, Link, Quote, Conversation:
    “Jeff Sherlock posted an entry”
  • Reblog – Entry, Photo, Photoset, Video, Audio, Link, Quote, Conversation:
    “Chris Ackermann reblogged a photo”
  • Like – Entry, Photo, Photoset, Video, Audio, Link, Quote, Conversation:
    “Andy Mitchell liked a link”
  • Reply – Entry, Photo, Photoset, Video, Audio, Link, Quote, Conversation, Question:
    “Jillian Stefanki replied to a question”
Aggregations

  • Most Recent Post
  • Likes
  • Recent Likes
  • Recent Posts
  • Recent Reblogs

Result
Since launching with Open Graph in April, Tumblr has seen referral traffic from Facebook increase by more than 2.5x.

Source: Facebook Developer Blog

Monitoring App Quality with Insights

by M. Dorn on May 16, 2012 · 0 comments

We’re introducing two new features in Insights: App Ratings and Negative Feedback. They both help you monitor positive and negative user signals.

As announced last week, inclusion and success in the App Center based on how people rate your app and how they engage with it. App Ratings and Negative Feedback can inform not only how you design your app experience to increase engagement and satisfaction, but also how your app grows through the App Center.

App Ratings

As people interact with apps, they can rate them using a five-star scale. These ratings show up in App Center and on your app detail page.

The app ratings dashboard shows you how people rate your app in aggregate across certain demographics. The overview at the top of the page presents your average app rating and your rating by star. You can view metrics for a day, week, month or custom date range.

Below the overview, a series of bar charts show your ratings across several demographics broken down by age and gender, country, and locale (which takes language into consideration). You can view each chart in absolute numbers or relative percentages.

Negative Feedback

Along with presenting positive ratings from users, the new features also help you monitor the negative signals for both stream publish and Open Graph stories. They show you how many times people have hidden stories from your app, reported stories as spam or blocked the app itself.

These reports take into the account the same type of automated systems we use internally to catch spam and malicious behavior on Platform. You will now be able to see the absolute number of negative signals or the ratio of negative feedback to the total number of impressions. The spam impression overview chart displays your reports against a green background when you’re doing well, and a yellow one if reports reach a level of concern. You can view metrics for a day, week, month or custom date range.

You can view reports for all story types or analyze content published using stream publish or Open Graph on breakout dashboards. These dashboards show more detail about each type of feedback. When analyzing stream publish feedback, you can see how users and non-users engaged with the content.

When analyzing Open Graph content, you can filter the chart to show user feedback on a specific action type, object type or all content.

In addition to these new tools, we encourage you to proactively review stories from your app to make sure they are engaging and include relevant content.

We want to continue to foster a healthy ecosystem where people have positive experiences on Facebook, and developers build, grow and maintain high-quality apps.

To start reviewing app ratings and negative feedback, access Insights for your app here or the Dev App. To learn more about Insights, please see the documentation.

Source: Facebook Developer Blog

Introducing the App Center

by M. Dorn on May 14, 2012 · 0 comments

Today, we’re announcing the App Center, a new place for people to find social apps. The App Center gives developers an additional way to grow their apps and creates opportunities for more types of apps to be successful.

In the coming weeks, people will be able to access the App Center on the web and in the iOS and Android Facebook apps. All canvas, mobile and web apps that follow the guidelines can be listed. All developers should start preparing today to make sure their app is included for the launch.

A place to find great apps
For the over 900 million people that use Facebook, the App Center will become the new, central place to find great apps like Draw Something, Pinterest, Spotify, Battle Pirates, Viddy, and Bubble Witch Saga.

Everything has an app detail page, which helps people see what makes an app unique and lets them install it before going to an app.

Growth for high-quality apps
Success through the App Center is tied to the quality of an app. We use a variety of signals, such as user ratings and engagement, to determine if an app is listed in the App Center. To help you monitor user feedback, we are also introducing a new app ratings metric in Insights to report how users rate your app over time.

Well-designed apps that people enjoy will be prominently displayed. Apps that receive poor user ratings or don’t meet the quality guidelines won’t be listed.

Driving mobile installs
The App Center is designed to grow mobile apps that use Facebook – whether they’re on iOS, Android or the mobile web.
From the mobile App Center, users can browse apps that are compatible with their device, and if a mobile app requires installation, they will be sent to download the app from the App Store or Google Play.

To grow your mobile app through the App Center, your app needs to use Facebook Login.

Create your app detail page today
All developers should create an app detail page. The page is required for being listed in the App Center, and it will also become the new destination when non-users search for your app on Facebook.

You can create an app detail page in the App Center section of the Developer App. There you can upload images, provide additional details, and configure the permissions your app requires. Learn more about setting up your app.

Before creating your app detail page, read the guidelines to ensure your page does not get removed. App detail pages that are eligible for the App Center will be reviewed prior to being listed and priority will be given to those apps that submit before May 18.

Paid Apps
Many developers have been successful with in-app purchases, but to support more types of apps on Facebook.com, we will give developers the option to offer paid apps. This is a simple-to-implement payment feature that lets people pay a flat fee to use an app on Facebook.com. If you are interested in the beta program, please sign up to receive more information.

We are excited to give developers a new way to grow their apps with the App Center. Get ready for the upcoming user launch by creating your app detail page today.

Source: Facebook Developer Blog

Developer Spotlight: Endomondo

by M. Dorn on May 13, 2012 · 0 comments

Endomondo is a mobile and web app where people can track and share their workouts – including running, biking, cycling and hiking – with friends.

What Endomondo Does Well

Endomondo uses single sign-on for Android and iOS to streamline the registration process, so that a user does not need to create a new username and password.

Endomondo uses location (GeoPoints on the workout object) to display workout routes, which appear as rich maps on a user’s timeline. The app also calculates and shows workout metrics – including total distance, average speed and calories burnt – to create more interesting stories.

Endomondo associates a sport object – such as running, biking, cycling and hiking – with each workout, allowing them to determine a user’s last workout and top sports.
Endomondo provides a simple control to manage sharing to Facebook.
Endomondo complements its mobile app with a desktop web app where users can analyze their own workout statistics.

Through the Endomondo activity feed, users can find friends who recently joined and follow their workouts, which starts conversations and encourages sharing.

Implementation Profile

Actions – Objects

  • Track – Workout:
    “Bryant Lee tracked a workout”
Aggregations

  • Last Workout
  • Top Sports

Result
Since launching with Open Graph in March, Endomondo has seen traffic from Facebook increase by more than 75% and the number of workouts shared daily on Facebook grow by over 150%.

Source: Facebook Developer Blog

Preview sponsored stories with the Action Spec Preview Tool

by M. Dorn on May 11, 2012 · 0 comments

Today we’re launching the action spec preview tool to make it easier for you to preview sponsored stories. Sponsored stories are stories that are prominently displayed to fans and their friends on the right-hand-side of any page or in news feed. Sponsored stories are a great way to increase the visibility of news feed stories that relate to your business and to drive engagement. The preview tool will now allow you to use the action spec to see how stories from your page or app will appear when sponsored. The action spec allows you to create sponsored stories, target audiences and measure actions using Graph actions. The action spec preview tool provides a simple way to visualize any story defined by an action spec as a sponsored story.

Two methods to preview sponsored stories with action spec preview tool

Using the drop down menu: Use the drop down menu to preview recent stories from your news feed or Page(s) you manage or like. The preview tool will display how sponsored stories will be seen by users in the news feed and right hand side of any page on Facebook. For Open Graph actions, the tool will also display the various selectors (action type and properties of the object) associated with the action spec to enable you to experiment with different combinations and specify the exact action spec you are interested in using.

Using the action spec: A more powerful method is to enter a specific action spec for any story on the Graph that you would like to preview. In addition to displaying how sponsored stories will be presented and the various selectors associated with the action spec, the tool will also provide the approximate number of actions, actors and actor’s friends within the last week that match the spec.

Discovering and visualizing stories from your timeline

A great way to familiarize yourself with the action spec preview tool is by previewing all recent stories from your timeline. For example, let’s say that you recently listened to Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson on Rdio, and a story was generated on your timeline. Once you select your timeline in the dropdown menu of the preview tool, the tool will display that story as a sponsored story in the right hand side or in the news feed.

Right Hand Side Version

News Feed Version

Experimenting with selectors

The action spec preview tool displays the various selectors (action type and properties of the object) associated with the action spec, which enables you to create different types of stories. Continuing with the example from above, the preview tool displays the various selectors associated with the story about you listening to the song Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson on Rdio, such as album, song.musician or application. To view stories about users listening to songs by Michael Jackson, click on the song.musician link and, the Tool will display the action spec and a sample of real stories that match the spec.

{"action.type":"music.listens","song.musician":"http://www.rdio.com/artist/Michael_Jackson/"}

In addition to the action spec preview tool, we also launched the ad preview API for previewing ads for existing ad groups, ad creatives and creative specifications. You can read more about the ad preview API at viewing ad previews.

In summary, the action spec preview tool helps you discover and visualize stories to sponsor, size the opportunity for a story, and discover alternate action specs all within a simple, visual interface. This visual workflow should help any developer or advertiser understand how to take advantage of available sponsored stories inventory. To start creating your own sponsored stories, go to: https://www.facebook.com/ads/manage/adscreator/. Or if you are a API developer, go to: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/ads-api/creative-specs/#action_specs_Sponsored_stories

Gokhan is a software engineer at Facebook working on Ads API. He will be sponsoring likes of this blog post with the Action Spec:

{action.type: 'like', object: 'https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2012/05/10/preview-sponsored-stories-with-the-action-spec-preview-tool/'}

Source: Facebook Developer Blog

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