Tag Archives: Facebook

Friday Links: Facebook filing for IPO?

• It’s rumored that Facebook will file its IPO next week.
• Twitter says it will censor country-specific tweets.
• Remarkably useful & expressive words that deserve more chances to enrich our language, including transmogrify which always makes me think of Calvin & Hobbes.
• Vintage photos turned into geek icons.
• Who were Fisher and Price?
• David Ogilvy: I am a lousy copywriter.
• 10 Misconceptions Rundown: a video about gum swallowing, seeing things from space, and spiders.
• If you missed it, check out the man behind the Honey Badger.
• Much ado about Google’s new privacy policy.
• The secret language of stamps, delightfully nerdy.

Friday Links: So long 2011 edition

• How your privacy will be invaded in 2012.
• Do you want to see a picture featuring 340 Nintendo characters? Of course you do.
• Recommended resolutions for advertising types, but probably good idea for all office types.
• Gamification sucks.
• 14 of the year’s best ideas in interface design.
• Brand New has the the worst and the best identities of 2011.
• Reddit’s Top 20 popular pics of 2011.
• Short order designer notepads are kind of awesome.
• The 8 Worst print ads of 2011. Warning: You will be offended.
• 40 most shared articles on Facebook in 2011.

Facebook removing App Profile Pages

Another week, another Facebook change. This time around they’ll be removing the application profile page on Feb 1, 2012. These pages have been confusing over the years. The application profile page looks like a FanPage, but is limited only to the application. These pages allow users to interact with the page like posting to the wall, or adding the application to a FanPage if they are an administrator. Facebook will also migrate the “likes” of the app to an existing page when you, as an administrator, select the page for the app. However, they won’t migrate any of the other page content.

You can get more information on the Facebook Developer Blog.

Friday Links: AT-ATs, nerdy vacations, and deadly sins

• 9 nerdy movie locations you should visit, just in time to make vacation plans for 2012.
• Edible gingerbread AT-AT.
• Stop Motion + Minecraft + Super Mario Bros = This video.
• Perfect secret santa gift for the chocolate-loving nerd in your life, handmade Space Invader chocolate bar.
• The most iconic weapons in video game history.
• Wired’s Geek Dad presents the 5 best toys of all time. It’s hard to find fault in this list.
• FTC and Facebook reach a settlement regarding user privacy abuse.
• Taxidermy Deer LEGO Kit a.k.a. $12 of awesome.
• Books for the geeky creative in your life.
• This isn’t so nerdy so much as the best thing I found on the Internet this week, The Rap Board. It’s super fun and will steal entirely more time out of your day than you anticipated.
• The seven deadly sins of StarWars.
• Swanky doodle, a nice story about Google’s doodles.
• Don’t forget you can give Toys for Tots to remember the Bucklin Boys.

Surprise! Facebook is breaking more stuff on January 1st

Facebook is updating their JavaScript SDK by deprecating three functions. The first function,
FB.Canvas.setAutoResize is going to be replaced with a new function FB.Canvas.setAutoGrow. These functions are used to dynamically change the size of your Facebook canvas and remove the scroll bars from view. If the function is not replaced your canvas will not be displayed as you expect. This change does not effect the FB.Canvas.setSize() function.

The other two functions are part of the FB.Data package of functionality (FB.Data.query & FB.Data.waitOn), and are used to query the graph using FQL. These functions will not be available to new applications and appear to be available for the near future. An alternative to these functions is to use FB.api() to make your FQL call to the graph.

For the full list and dates for Facebook changes look to the Developers Roadmap.

Wednesday Links: Because it’s a holiday week

• Hey! Don’t forget to sign up for next week’s free Facebook webinar.
• The Morning News’ Home for the holiday tech support will either make you laugh or cry or remind you of that time you shouted “you’re clicking wrong” at your sister while providing phone tech support.
• The Muppabet.
• Amazon has a nice Q&A with Neil Gaiman.
• Anil Dash: Facebook attacks the open web, becomes a badware site.
• What Ron Johnson learned from building the Apple Store. Basically, if you build it they will come. Eventually.
• From the EFF: Free speech is only as strong as its weakest link. Also, Battle for Internet freedom pits Hollywood against Silicon Valley.
• 10 internet memes that became commercials.

Nerdery webinar: Facebook breaking change; sky falling?

Don’t go breaking my app

Forewarning: Significant Facebook changes are coming

There are a number of significant changes coming to Facebook in the next few months. Many of these effect the code of your Facebook applications.

The biggest change is that on June 1, 2012, your existing FBML applications will no longer work and may ultimately be removed from fan pages by Facebook. From Facebook, “FBML apps will no longer work on Platform. All FBML endpoints are removed as of June 1, 2012.”

If you have an FBML application and you want to keep your application, it’s time to convert from FBML to a new IFrame application.

For December, there are a number of changes that will be implemented.

1. OAuth spec migration
This code change will effect the way your developers access a specific variable. Facebook has changed the variable name and now your developers need to reference this new variable name.

2. Deprecating Dashboard APIs
This code change only applies to you if your application is leveraging the Dashboard API in your application. This is typically not part of the garden variety Facebook applications that have been built. See a list of the API calls that are effected.

3. Apps on Facebook: FB.Canvas.getPageInfo must be called with callback
This code change only effects you if your application is using this method in the Facebook SDK/API. This is typically not part of the garden variety Facebook applications that have been built.

4. Removing Bookmark URL
This is an application configuration and code change. Facebook is removing the “Bookmark URL” from the application’s configuration. The “Bookmark URL” was a way to assign a unique URL to the link to the application icon in the left column. Facebook didn’t like the way developers were using the field by redirecting users. Now, if your application will use a bookmark there is another method, via code, to track the referral from the bookmark.

For more information go to Facebook’s Developer Road Map.

New Authorization login screen for Facebook permissons

Facebook is rolling out a new Permissions dialog flow, that includes a set of new screens your users will need to interact with when installing your application. The new dialog boxes include an area when you can provide a description for your users to read before they install the application and an easy-to-read list of the permissions your application will be requesting.

As the new Open Graph is rolled out to the public the permissions dialog box will also include a flow of recent posts from the application.

Like the old permissions dialog box, this only appears the first time the user interacts with the application.

The new flow includes multiple screens, the process is described below:

1. The user is presented with the “Introduction” dialog box.

• The user will see the application logo
• The user will see the permissions that are requested
• The user will read a description of the application
• The user will see a list of their friends that have accepted the application

2. The user will click the “login” button.

• If the user is already logged into the Facebook platform the user will be navigated to the next screen.
• This same dialog will appear if the user is authenticating to an application that is in the Facebook tab/canvas or if the user is on your own website that is using the Facebook APIs.

3. Once the user has logged in the user will then accepted the extended permissions. This dialog box has a text area where you can explain to the user why you need these permissions for your application.

So, this is pretty cool. Yes it’s an extra step, but now as an application owner you have more tool to inform your users about your application.

Read more about this on Facebook’s developer’s blog.