THE HISTORY OF FACEBOOK'S DEVELOPER

PLATFORM

The Facebook Platform is a software environment provided by the social networking service Facebook for third-party developers to create their own applications and services that access data in Facebook.

Launched on May 24, 2007, the platform offers a set of programming interfaces and tools which enable developers to integrate with the open "social graph" of personal relations and other things like songs, places, and Facebook pages.

Applications on Facebook.com, external websites, and devices are all allowed to access the graph.

FACEBOOK PLATFORM

• A Blank Canvas

• Connecting People with Apps

• The Open Graph

• The New Timeline

• Future

HISTORY OF FACEBOOK PLATFORM

• The Facebook Developer Platform started as a way for third-party developers to embed apps into the Facebook experience.

• This was referred to as “Canvas”. It opened the door for companies like Zynga to create apps and particularly games that existed within the walls of Facebook.

• Facebook currently has a quarter of a billion people playing games on the social network in any given month. It paid out roughly $2 billion to developers just last year.

• Canvas is for the most part unchanged from its launch 7 years ago. Since that launch, it has become more and more important to users and has continued to grow — currently reaching higher profits than ever.

A BLACK CANVAS

• In 2008, Facebook launched Facebook Connect. It was the first way for people to connect to their Facebook accounts from an external website.

• According to Facebook officials, the reason behind the decision is “there were many developers who didn’t want to necessarily fit inside the Facebook frame, and we still wanted to offer an opportunity for those applications to be social”.

• Currently more than 10 million apps and websites are integrated into Facebook.

CONNECTING PEOPLE WITH APPS

• Another way Facebook started to connect with the outside world was with the Like button. Launched in 2010, Facebook launched the social plug-in as a way for developers to get more social.

• The Like button coupled with Facebook Connect has proven to be a winning combination on Facebook, with many of the world’s largest websites offering some sort of Facebook experience on top of their existing app or service.

CONNECTING PEOPLE WITH APPS (CONT.)

• In 2011, Facebook let developers integrate even deeper with the social network through the open graph.

• For example, applications such as Nike+ that share information on your run. Using Nike+, Facebook users can share that they’re going on a run with friends.

• “We’re starting to see not just games being successful on the platform,” says Doug Purdy (Director of Platform Product).

• “If you look at the lifestyle apps that are really part of who you are, we’re seeing an enormous amount of those coming to the Facebook platform.”

THE OPEN GRAPH

• Goodreads, for example, is a company that uses Facebook's Developer Platform to help friends share book recommendations with each other.

• "Developing for each new iteration of the Facebook platform has had a huge impact on our growth, especially in the last couple of years," Otis Chandler, CEO and cofounder of Goodreads told Mashable.

• "By January 2012, Goodreads had grown to 6.5 million members. Facebook Timeline launched at that point and that's when we saw a huge jump in signups and traffic from Facebook. There are now more than 18 million members on Goodreads and a large part of that is due to Facebook.

THE OPEN GRAPH (CONT.)

• All those things led up to Facebook’s recently redesigned Timeline, which features different sections for different types of content you’re interested in.

• Last year, Pandora integrated into the Facebook Timeline, bringing the music you listen to and like on the service to your Facebook profile where your friends can see it.

• In the case of Pandora, the content you share is stored in a special “Music” section on your Timeline.

• “For us, this is really about trying to take these third-party applications that are creating the story of your life – whether or not it’s a game, all the way to what food I’m eating — and having great homes for those in News Feed or Timeline, or eventually into Graph Search”.

NEW TIMELINE

• Mobile is playing a huge role in the future of the web and also the future of Facebook.

• Paper by Facebook has changed the mobile experience into a totally new thing.

• Facebook Developer Platform will keep brining new experiences for mobile users.

• Facebook Platform is designed in a way to be device-agnostic.

• Whether you’re interacting with the web on your computer, tablet, smartphone or even Google Glass — Facebook can be right beside you.

• “This isn’t really Facebook platform versus these other things. Facebook platform is something that puts people at the center of all those platforms”. (Mark Zuckerberg)

FUTURE

Emily Price. (2013). “How the Facebook Developer Platform Has Changed How We Use the Web”. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2013/05/25/facebook-developer-platform/ on March 25, 2014.

Stephen Buck. (2013). “The History of Facebook's Developer Platform [INFOGRAPHIC].” Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2012/05/24/facebook-developer-platform-infographic/ on March 25, 2014.

Cygnis Media. (2013). “Facebook Introduces Shared Albums.” Retrieved from http://www.cygnismedia.com/blog/facebook-shared-albums/ on March 25, 2014.

RESOURCES