Facebook is one of the fastest growing social networking websites and is quickly becoming a powerful and cost effective portal, ideal for organizations to create that ‘brand connection’ in the Web2.0 world.
http://www.facebook.com
What are Facebook applications?
Facebook applications are the software programs that allow users to connect, interact and entertain themselves and their ‘friends’.
Most Facebook users today use 3rd party Facebook applications to add some fun and personality to their Facebook profile. Their purpose is to generate content that the user finds is relevant or of interest to them.
There is virtually an application for everything, ranging from a Facebook application that reminds a user when their favorite band is coming to town to a slide show of a collection of sentimental photos. The great thing about Facebook applications is that if it is to be added to a profile, the users listed as a individual’s ‘friends’ are sent an option of also using it. The application then circulates at such a rapid rate exposure is viral.
Now a day’s most company’s developing facebook applications like gaming, interactive interfaces to promote their products etc.
http://www.facebook.com/apps/directory.php
Many site are integrated their facebook features into their sites
http://developers.facebook.com/showcase/
Facebook Application Development
We can create an application completely focused on our business brand. Think of a travel application that links to booking information on our website or a product catalogue of our latest products. All applications are designed to generate maximum interest on our business and draw continual international traffic to our website.
http://developers.facebook.com/
How to create a Facebook Application
To create an application we need to register our application with facebook. Also we need to install the facebook developer kit. Using the facebook application we can access information about the facebook profile even the non public information. For example if a facebook user register with our site , we can use facebook login for registering. If the user login with facebook we can collect the public information of the user including the emailid. So no need to confirm the email again, because it Is already confirmed by facebook. Also we can collect address, phone no, gender etc.
Tutorials to develop a Facebook application
http://developers.facebook.com/
Scope of facebook social plug-in
A reader on your site, who is logged into her Facebook account, can now give your story a “Thumbs up” by simply clicking this Like button. She will also have to option to publish a snippet of your blog story on to her Facebook profile.
Then you have the Activity widget that shows in near real-time how people are interacting with your stories. If the user is logged into Facebook, the activity widget will show the activity of her friends on your web site else it’ll show everyone’s activity.
However, the most exciting social plug in for Facebook in the new recommendations engine. It shows a list of most popular stories on your blog as determined by the count of Facebook users who have “liked” that story.
To get started, we need to add our domain name to Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/insights/
We basically need to verify that we are the actual owner of the domain and we can do this by simply adding a unique HTML META tag to our blog header.
Facebook will check the tag in our blog and once it’s verified, we can link the reports to either our Facebook profile or any Facebook page, if we own one.
Once everything is in place, we can revisit the Facebook Insights page to get detailed sharing stats of our blog pages. It will even tell us the top countries / cities of users who are interacting with our stories including the demographics.
If you have a forum or a blog site that requires registration, you may also explore the Sign-on widget that will let user registers on your site using their Facebook ID
This new tools from makes it possible for websites to allow you to connect with your friends and their likings. It helps you get first hand views and reviews from friends about the new movie which is the talk of the town, or the menu in any restaurant or the latest news. Not that it doesn’t allow strangers to give their feedback but it makes it possible for your friends to stand prominently.
The plugins makes it possible to show your action in the following ways you can either ‘like’ content, or you can ‘recommend’ such contents. This makes it possible for you to connect with any content that you like publicly.
Alternately the tool also helps to remove or ‘unlike’ any new content or previously liked content. Another possible way is through the activity feed. This lets you know what your friends are doing with their likes and recommendations while visiting a particularly popular website.
Social plugins
All social plugins are extensions of Facebook and are specifically designed so none of our data is shared with the sites on which they appear.
We can add these plugins into our site by adding a group of code into our website.
Facebook Plugins
1: Like Button
The Like button lets a user share your content with friends on Facebook. When the user clicks the Like button on your site, a story appears in the user's friends' News Feed with a link back to your website.
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like
2: Activity Feed
The Activity Feed plugin displays the most interesting recent activity taking place on your site. Since the content is hosted by Facebook, the plugin can display personalized content whether or not the user has logged into your site. The activity feed displays stories both when users like content on your site and when users share content from your site back to Facebook.
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/activity
3: Comments
The Comments Box easily enables your users to comment on your site's content — whether it's for a web page, article, photo, or other piece of content. Then the user can share the comment on Facebook on their Wall and in their friends' streams.
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/comments
Sample code
<div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#appId=APP_ID&xfbml=1"></script><fb:comments xid="1234" width="425"></fb:comments>
4: Facepile
The Facepile plugin shows the Face book profile pictures of the user's friends who have already signed up for your site.
You can specify the maximum number of rows of profile pictures to display. The plugin dynamically sizes its height; for example, if you specify a maximum of four rows, and there are only enough friends to fill two rows, the height of the plugin will be only what is needed for two rows of profile pictures. The plugin doesn't render if the user is logged out of Facebook or doesn't have friends who have signed up for your site using Facebook.
Sample code
<div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#appId=APP_ID&xfbml=1"></script><fb:facepile max-rows="5" width="600"></fb:facepile>
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/facepile
5: Like Box
The Like Box is a social plugin that enables Facebook Page owners to attract and gain Likes from their own website. The Like Box enables users to:
- See how many users already like this page, and which of their friends like it too
- Read recent posts from the page
- Like the page with one click, without needing to visit the page
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like-box
6: Live Stream
The Live Stream plugin lets users visiting your site or application share activity and comments in real time. Live Stream works best when you are running a real-time event, like live streaming video for concerts, speeches, or webcasts, live Web chats, webinars, massively multiplayer games.
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/live-stream
7: Login Button
The Login Button shows profile pictures of the user's friends who have already signed up for your site in addition to a login button.
You can specify the maximum number of rows of faces to display. The plugin dynamically sizes its height; for example, if you specify a maximum of four rows of faces, and there are only enough friends to fill two rows, the height of the plugin will be only what is needed for two rows of faces.
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/login
8: Recommendations
The Recommendations plugin shows personalized recommendations to your users. Since the content is hosted by Facebook, the plugin can display personalized recommendations whether or not the user has logged into your site. To generate the recommendations, the plugin considers all the social interactions with URLs from your site. For a logged in Facebook user, the plugin will give preference to and highlight objects her friends have interacted with.
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/recommendations
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