Facebook Developer site updated. Open Graph Beta available
Posted Friday, September 23, 2011 at 4:46 am by Jason Cartwright
If you’re a developer and keen to take advantage of the newly updated Open Graph, then your should check out the Facebook Developer’s site. While the keynote is still going, the dev site has already been updated.
Open graph will also support ratings. This means that application interactions posted to user’s walls, will provide analytics back to developers about what is most engaging and most annoying. This information can inform future development decisions.
Those who aren’t developers may also want to check out the site, as it contains a lot of information and images about today’s F8 announcements.
More info @ https://developers.facebook.com/docs/beta/
Discover music and movies through friends on Facebook. Maybe.
Posted Friday, September 23, 2011 at 4:19 am by Jason Cartwright
Music service Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek took the stage to discuss the way Spotify are taking advantage of Facebook to allow users to discover new music. “Today is a big day for music” and “a big day for the music industry.”
Ek dropped a couple of bombshells without much reaction. He announced Facebook now has 800Million users, up from the previous 750 Million in July. He went on to say that Spotify will be available around the world. Currently Spotify only supports the US, UK, Sweden, Spain, Netherlands, Norway, France and Finland.
We’ll need some further clarification on just what Ek meant by his statements, particularly if that includes Australia, lets hope so. Discovering new music via your Facebook friends is a neat idea, but the experience will be really broken if we end up seeing ‘I’m sorry your friend lives in a unsupported country’. In fact some of the best ways to discover new music is to watch the US or UK charts, so it makes sense this would be supported.
We’re all too familiar with how messed up media licensing is, something that seriously needs to be sorted for the innovation of tomorrow to take place. Facebook’s slide of initial media partners working on the new Open Graph, doesn’t showcase any Australian companies.. Alarm bells.
‘Read a book’, ‘Watch a movie’, Facebook Open Graph evolves
Posted Friday, September 23, 2011 at 4:04 am by Jason Cartwright
Application developers can now use verbs in their applications. Previously the Facebook Open Graph only allowed for a limited set of ‘Likes’, but now you can ‘do’ something with ‘something’. Facebook believe this change will lead to a completely new class of social apps that weren’t possible before.
Clicking ‘Like’ on a Book or Movie will become ‘Jason watched Transformers 3: Darkside of the Moon’ for example. This makes a lot of sense, but don’t expect this immediately, developers will need some time to update their apps.
Another important change in the Open Graph, is that applications won’t interrupt your use of an application with an annoying permission request. Zuckerberg says we should think about adding an application as joining an application and your Timeline. The initial permission request will essentially grant access to an application to publish updates to your wall. A lot of applications already require this to use the app, but require multiple requests.
Having application permissions dealt with in a single dialog does simplify things, it does set alarm bells about just how much it will post. Of course if an app is posting content you don’t want, you can revoke permissions in your settings.
Facebook update now available, not that you had a choice
Posted Wednesday, September 21, 2011 at 3:18 pm by Jason Cartwright
Facebook have just pulled the trigger on their latest UI refresh. Their continued persistence on marching forward wether users want or demand it is relentless. The changes include an change to the News Feed, It now distinguishes between the most recent stories and the Top Stories, depending on how long its been since your last login.
The dedicated update box is now gone, replaced with a set of streamlined update options – ‘Update Status, Add Photo and Ask Question. The Add Photo option seems miss-named as the options provided once you click it, also include video. Gone is the separate ‘Add Link’ option, instead this is just done by pasting the link in the status update.
Chat on the right is now split into two sections, the top being status updates from friends currently online, making it easier to engage with those are, or have recently been online. There’s no refreshing here, the top section is live and flows like a river with updates.
Photos have also been updated, with a gallery of photos now displaying in a tiled design.
The timing of the release is interesting, being a couple of days before the F8 developer conference on Friday. If they felt the need to push this change out prior to the conference, that only gives weight to the rumoured ‘big changes’ that are coming. Hold on tight people, could be a big FB week.
Judging from early reaction online people aren’t happy, not surprising, change is hard and with 750 Million users, you can’t please everyone. The change is jarring initially, but seriously isn’t that different, just live with it for a while people. At the end of the day you don’t have a choice of the old design. Live with it.
Google+ gets new features, Docs collaboration, Search and more.
Posted Wednesday, September 21, 2011 at 2:44 pm by Jason Cartwright
Today Google+ entered public beta, opened to the public, but that is the least interesting development. Beta invites to Google+ have flowed freely online, so anyone who wanted to be on Google+ already is. After launching 90 days ago, Google has made 91 improvements.. how many did you notice ?
Today Google+ are adding 9 new features. The biggest and most interesting related to the most innovative feature – Google Hangouts. Android 2.3+ users with a front-facing camera can now participate in Hangouts. Hangouts can now be ‘On Air’ meaning that you don’t miss out if your not in the 10 participants, you can now spectate on a Google+ Hangout.
Desktop Hangout users can now utilise screen sharing, sketching or drawing and co-edit Google docs. This feature is awesome, there is simply no other company offering this functionality for free. Go to Meeting recently added HD calls to their online presentation software, but that attracts a pretty hefty rate.
For all the information on changes to Google+, check out the Google blog.
Family HQ is a private social network for your extended family
Posted Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 8:09 am by Jason Cartwright
Family HQ is a new concept in social networking – it’s private. An Internet start-up that is 100% owned and developed within Australia, Family HQ is the first Australian social network of this type. During Microsoft’s Tech.Ed conference I got a chance to sit down with the Co-Founders Jase and Brooke Farmer.
Family HQ was created as a result of a personal need, that was then requested by friends. The private social network is designed for those that want to keep content private, so security is strong focus.
More info @ FamilyHQ.com
