Facebook Applications

Facebook hires Mobile Video And Image Editing App Developer

2011-11-08T03:22:00.000-08:00

It looks like Facebook has just acq-hired mobile video and image app developer Digital Staircase, according to a blog post on the startup’s site. According to Facebook, Digital Staircase’s team will be joining the social network but Facebook has not acquired any of the technology assets from the startup.

Digital Staircase has developed a number of apps for video recording, image editing and more. MovieCam, which is available as an iPad and iOS app, is a camcorder app that provides recording features like 8x digital zoom, pause-and-resume recording functionality, and contrast enhancement. The app also allows you to add 18 movie effects and filters while shooting video.

iPhone app StereoCam aids in the quick creation of stereo image pairs. A stereo image pair consists of two specially designed images that are placed side-by-side to allow viewers (employing an appropriate viewing technique) to see the depicted scene in full.

Another iOS app SmartSplice uses advanced graphics algorithms to improve the speed and ease of creating high-quality image selections and provides image filters and a way to create professional-looking image effects.

From the post, it appears that the development team may be adding some of these functionalities to Facebook itself. Unfortunately, Digital Staircase will be removing its apps from the Apple App Store.

Facebook for iPad

2011-11-08T03:19:00.000-08:00

If there's an app that qualifies as the Holy Grail of iPad apps, then this is it. Facebook was the one app that iPad users wanted and didn't get - till just recently. The official version isn't a whole lot different from the one that tech journos found hidden in the iPhone app code last June. Rumours of a product delay because of iOS 5 integration - which didn't happen - notwithstanding, the app is finally here and so are we with our review.

Usability:

At the core, Facebook for iPad offers very similar functionality to its sister iPhone and Android apps, but what separates it from its small screen siblings is that the user-interface is optimized for the iPad 9.7-Inch IPS display.

At the heart of the user interface Facebook has applied elements reminiscent of the iPad Twitter application. Just like Twitter on the iPad, we get a homescreen pane of the left hand side of the display, which displays options such as News Feed, Messages, Nearby, Events, Friends, Groups, Apps and Account settings. This whole pane can be hidden once we swipe the chosen option towards the pane which would then overlay it, hence hiding it. However, with equal ease, we can get it to return to its normal view with a swipe towards the right hand side.

It's quite evident Facebook decided to use swiping gestures to give the interface a cleaner and simplistic feel.

On the top header we get the standard Notifications, Messages and Friend Request drop down menus alongside one button which hides the left menu pane, a secondary option for many who would rather not use the swiping gestures. On the top right corner of the header we noticed an option specific button: for instance, in the News Feed we were offered the All Stories option, while in Messages it gave us options for writing new messages or marking old messages as spam, unread or archiving them. While all these are expected standard Facebook features, presentation is key and Facebook for iPad nails it.

Indeed, the interface is sublimely intuitive and reminds us of the website itself. With this, Facebook has ensured that its users are already familiar with the app, because it's so much like the website.

Yes, Facebook has still not managed to transition its Timeline interface to the app, but that is something, which Facebook can achieve via an update. While this disappointed us as we were early adopters of Facebook's Timeline interface, there are many people yet to make the jump and we think Facebook will wait till most of its user base shifts to Timeline before they update the app with it.

Previously, iPad users resorted to using third party Facebook chat apps or the iPhone app for Facebook chat as the java script for Facebook chat was not available on the mobile Safari on the iPad. Facebook has expectedly added chat to the iPad which is not too dissimilar from the iPhone functionality.

With Photo Galleries, all we need to do is swipe through images and the app offers buttons on the top right corner for us to comment on or like the images. All this is very simple, perhaps simpler than browsing the website itself, and certainly way simpler than the mobile apps which are limited by screen real estate.

Verdict:

It was in the works for more than a year, and in spite of Mark Zuckerberg calling the iPad non-mobile device when it came out in January 2010, we have an app dedicated to the device. That fact in itself says volumes about the worthiness of this app. It brings no innovative functionality to the table, not even Facebook's game-changing Timeline interface, but to put it simply it is the simplest way to access the social networking giant, perhaps even the best way to do so, especially if the iPad is your primary device.

How to Write a Facebook Application in 5 minutes

2011-11-04T10:21:00.000-07:00

The Plan: We'll write a basic Facebook app that will have links to our social profiles and a Google site search box. Later, you can expand the idea to build slightly more complex applications that contain RSS feeds, video clips, etc.
Things you need: You don't have to be a "geek" for writing basic Facebook Applications. All you need is some knowledge of web programming languages and some free space on a web server where you'll host your Facebook app (which are nothing but simple PHP files).

Step 1. Assuming that you already have an account on Facebook, add the Developer application to your Facebook profile and then click "Set Up New Application".

Step 2. Give your new Facebook App a name, agree to the terms and then upload some image for your application logo.

Step 3. From the Application settings, choose Canvas and set FBML as the rendering method. The other option is IFRAME but we'll use FBML for the moment to keep things simple.

Step 4. Using any WYSIWYG HTML editor (or even notepad), write the content that you want to display inside your Facebook application.

Step 5. Log in to your web server where you'll be hosting the Facebook App and create a sub-directory called "facebook". So if you domain is example.com, the Facebook app can be accessed from example.com/facebook.

Under the facebook directory, download (wget) the application template and rename the file to index.php. Replace the API Key and the Secret key in index.php with real values and also copy-paste the HTML (that you created in Step 4) into the index.php file.

Step 6. While you are inside the "facebook" directory, download the Facebook library (through wget) and extract the files in this archive via gunzip and tar. Now execute the following command to move facebook.php and other library files outside the facebook-platform subdirectory.

Step 7. We are almost done. Go back to your Facebook Application page in the browser, click "Edit Settings" and set the values for Canvas.

The Canvas Page URL - choose a nice vanity URL for your Facebook application.
The Canvas Callback URL - location of the web service where your files are hosted (in our case, this will be example.com/facebook).

That's it. Anyone can now add your Facebook app to their profiles either in the Boxes tab or in the sidebar of the main profile page.

Five Popular Apps On Facebook

2011-11-04T10:17:00.000-07:00

Here are the five most popular Facebook applications, as of this morning.

iLike integrates the music social network and recommendation service into your profile (see my previous coverage of iLike). Adding music-based social networking to Facebook makes perfect sense, and is something they could have easily done themselves. That’s what makes the company’s Platform strategy so intriguing. Mike Arrington (over at TechCrunch) also notes the omission of Last.fm which is arguably the best-of-breed of music-based social networks.
Horoscopes (by RockYou!) adds twice-weeky horoscope readings to your profile.
The Compass (by the Washington Post) involves taking a survey that determines your political compass. The results are then displayed on your profile. It’s a fun idea, but hardly qualifies as an ‘application’.
Games adds multiplayer web-based games to Facebook: “Play games and meet new people in your networks! Add the Games application to get access to a constantly changing selection of fun multi-player games, all right in your browser.” Pretty obvious but neat idea that has the potential to take traffic away from dedicated web-based gaming social networks. If the games are any good that is.
Picnik adds basic photo editing functionality to Facebook. Considering that the social network has been reported as the largest photo-sharing site on the web, giving users the ability to re-size, crop, and enhance their photos without leaving the site is a smart move. Although again, it seems like the kind of thing Facebook should have done themselves.

As you can see from the above list, two of the apps barely qualify as widgets (Horoscopes and The Compass), whereas iLike and Picnik add very powerful features which enhance Facebook’s values to such a degree that it’s a statement of intent that Facebook didn’t choose to roll their own or achieve the same end through acquisition.

Brands

2011-10-25T10:59:00.001-07:00

Actions speak louder than words. Businesses must act. Once the door to social consciousness is
opened, bring the spirit of your company through it to affect change.” – Brian Solis, Principal at
FutureWorks

AvenueSocial extends its services to many prestigious brands to leverage our in depth analysis and
tools to build personalized and long lasting social media applications. We work with our clients to
engage and measure their social sphere, focusing on customer engagement to further strengthen
the brand-consumer relationship
to improve brand recall.

Our brand engagement philosophy incorporates dynamic planning, execution and analysis.

AvenueSocial can tailor one of your standard Facebook applications into a new type of custom
application as per your requirements and
needs.

Brands throughout the world need social media presence as a main tool to enhance their promotion
and viral distribution of product info. Branding with Avenue Social gives voice to your product like
never before. Our state of the art solution and distribution techniques alleviate your brand to newer
and unparallel paramount.

Mobile Apps

2011-10-25T10:58:00.002-07:00

Social media marketing is bursting at the seams, and marketers have
started to look around for other avenues for promotion and marketing.

Companies can no longer settle for being “within reach” , trying to promote their business via scattered media choices. Now, companies need their
business to be “on hand” for their customers. Mobile apps definitely cater
to this need in the most effective way.

At Avenuesocial, we work on the following platforms:

iPhone
iPad
Android
Blackberry

Games

Game applications are fun, challenging, social, and a powerful tool
for brands.

Education

Education apps are an enormous successes on mobile platforms, changing
the way kids learn.

Life style

Life-enhancing mobile applications elevate user's leisure time by connecting them to home, fashion, food, special interests and more.

News:

News applications provide broad news for the world at large, or
tailored news for an endless variety of specific interests.

Brands:

Brands have a revolutionary opportunity for customer engagement
with the use of targeted mobile apps.

Travel:

A natural fit for mobile platforms: convenience, information,
directions, and tips on the go.

Music:

Beyond MP3s, music apps bring information, tour dates, social
networking opportunities and more to music fans.

Utilities:

Utilities are user tools that solve simple or complex requirements
for serious pursuits, and sometimes for laughs!

Facebook Fan Pages

2011-10-25T10:58:00.000-07:00

Fan pages provide you with the valuable opportunity to interact with your target audience. Fan pages are not just interactive: they can also be fun, provided they accurately represent your customer profile. The opportunities that a fan page can offer your business include:

Reaching your customers: Interact with your customers and educate them about your latest developments. Attract new customers and retain the existing ones.
Marketing yourself: With social media, sky is the limit! Now you can easily market your products and services on a more interactive and engaging platform.
Tracking, measuring and analysis: Now you can access key information about your fans, including age, gender, social affiliations and – most importantly – likes and interests!
Entertainment: Fan pages for celebrities, cartoons, movies and musical groups can be developed to interact directly with fans and provide them with regular updates on what’s new and happening.

Gifting Applications

Let users send branded virtual gifts directly from your Facebook Fan Page.

Quizzes

Develop quiz applications that help your brand gain insight into the minds of your customers and help you to connect with them.

Polls

Conduct polls on specific topics.

Trivia apps

Let your users compete for fun, utilizing leader board rankings and status updates.

Facebook Applications

2011-10-25T10:57:00.000-07:00

Facebook applications are a new way to interact with the customers in an indirect manner. Through Facebook applications, you can both sustain and develop customer relationships.

Branded Facebook applications act as means of engaging customers
to the fullest while increasing brand awareness and loyalty.
Interactive applications engage the consumers, making them your friends.
You can effectively achieve viral marketing objectives through Facebook applications.
Generate traffic by creating awareness among non-users through newsfeeds and updates by existing users.

Role playing games

“RPGs” are one way to take customers into an imaginary world and engage them, generating revenue in a new way.

Trivia Applications

Let users compete for status, leader board rankings or just for fun.

Gifting Applications

Let users send branded virtual gifts to their friends directly from your Facebook Fan Page.

Utility Applications

Enable users to perform their daily activities, such as sharing with their friends, using utilities like "Bumper Sticker" and "Big Photo."

Multimedia Applications

Give users the ability to submit, view and rate user-generated media with the protection of brand-controlled moderation.

Some Latest News

2011-10-25T10:55:00.000-07:00

New GEICO app gives Facebook users access to their GEICO policies

WASHINGTON, Oct 25, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) --

GEICO understands how customers want to handle their insurance business these days -- easy and fast -- so it is launching a new GEICO Facebook app called "GEICO Shortcuts," to give GEICO policyholders access to their insurance information using the functionality of the popular social networking site.

"Facebook's dramatic growth has significantly changed the way people consume information," said Steve Smith, GEICO assistant vice president for information technology. "We've created an app that makes it easier for customers to get access to GEICO within the Facebook environment."

Here are some features of the GEICO Shortcuts app:

-- Pay your bill (via a stored account or using the one-time card option)

-- Retrieve your ID cards to save or print

-- View GEICO Privileges deals

-- Rate Caveman Photo Crasher photos

-- Unlock tokens by performing certain tasks within the Facebook app

GEICO (Government Employees Insurance Company) is a member of the Berkshire Hathaway family of companies and is the third-largest private passenger auto insurer in the United States. The company is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. GEICO handles auto insurance coverage for 10 million private passenger auto policies and insures more than 16 million vehicles.

In addition to auto insurance, GEICO offers customers insurance products for their motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), and mobile homes. Coverage for life, boats, homes and apartments is available through the GEICO Insurance Agency. Commercial auto insurance and personal umbrella protection are also available.

MyPad Shrugs Off Official Facebook Competitor, Now Has 2.5 Million Daily Active Users

On October 10th, one of the longest running tech rumors in recent memory finally came to fruition: Facebook released its own, official iPad application. The app had been in high demand since the day the iPad first launched (Facebook’s iPhone app is, after all, among the platform’s most popular of all time). But there was no iPad app available on launch day. Nor was there one the day the iPad 2 came out. But that didn’t stop people from heading to the app store and typing ‘Facebook’.

In the mean time, some enterprising entrepreneurs took the opportunity to launch their own, unofficial Facebook iPad apps — which millions of people wound up downloading. One of these is MyPad (formerly called FacePad), which has seen strong growth since it first launched in January, offering access to Facebook features like Photos, News Feed, and Chat — with an interface that’s slicker than the web version of the site. The app has steadily improved since then, and recently introduced its iPhone application.

Perhaps more important: despite the launch of the official Facebook app earlier this month, MyPad usage is still at an all-time high, and growing.

Cole Ratias, one of the founders of Loytr, the company that makes MyPad, says that the app has seen 25% growth since Facebook launched the official iPad application, and that it’s currently the 15th most popular app on Facebook platform. The app now has 2.5 million daily active users (up from around 2.1 million a month ago) — and 65% of them are using the app on a regular basis. Ratias says that is 10-15% higher than the repeat visitors Facebook itself sees in its app, based on AppData.

Ratias acknowledges that there was a dip once the official Facebook app launched, and the number of new downloads has taken a hit as well, in large part due to Facebook’s official app ranking higher in search results and Apple’s ‘top apps’ listings. But the engagement numbers show that plenty of people are sticking with what they already have, and Ratias says that a lot of new users actually tried out the official app and wanted something different, then turned to MyPad.

That said, for Loytr to retain that audience and to keep growing in the longer term, it’s going to have to find ways to differentiate itself from the official app. But it knows that full well.

Last night the company rolled out a new version of the iPad app (the 99 cent version is already live, while the free version is pending Apple’s approval).With the new update, Loytr continues to integrate new features that Facebook doesn’t offer — in addition to Twitter integration, it now features a trending apps section, which showcases other applications users have installed to their devices. And the company just did a deal with Hype Machine to integrate free music as well.

Bandcamp’s New Facebook Page Tab App Lacks Features But Makes Selling Music Cheap and Easy

Bandcamp criticizes the social network as a place for musicians, calling it “just another part of a good overall distribution strategy” in the launch materials for its app and saying Facebook Pages are cluttered with distracting content and ads. By waiting this long to build a Page tab app for Facebook, though, Bandcamp has given its competitors a big head start in terms of functionality and user base. It will need to close these gaps to remain attractive to artists who have much to gain from Facebook’s massive audience, and to increase its own revenues.

Bandcamp was founded in 2008, long before RootMusic and ReverbNation began growing the user counts of their Page tab apps. The service lets musicians create a homepage from which visitors can stream their music, view their upcoming tour dates, join their mailing list, download tracks, and buy their albums. The site acts as a publishing platform, as artists don’t necessarily need a record label if they can distribute their music for profit through Bandcamp.

At launch, the site’s simple design and reliability made it a refreshing alternative to Myspace. In the early days of music Page tab apps on Facebook, it offered arguably stronger, cheaper branding and distribution services than RootMusic’s BandPage and ReverbNation’s BandProfile. It also offered a wide range of sharing capabilities including powerful Facebook news feed sharing option that allowed users to stream music in-line from te feed or begin a purchase flow with a single click

New GEICO app gives Facebook users access to their GEICO policies

2011-10-25T10:46:00.001-07:00

New GEICO app gives Facebook users access to their GEICO policies

WASHINGTON, Oct 25, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) --

Here are some features of the GEICO Shortcuts app:

-- Pay your bill (via a stored account or using the one-time card option)

-- Retrieve your ID cards to save or print

-- View GEICO Privileges deals

-- Rate Caveman Photo Crasher photos

-- Unlock tokens by performing certain tasks within the Facebook app

The GEICO Shortcuts app joins an ever expanding list of mobile apps released in 2011 including the GEICO Guinea Pig Getaway app, the GEICO BroStache app and the Caveman Photo Crasher app. To access GEICO Shortcuts, click on http://on.fb.me/nLo8Vb or to experience GEICO.com's latest innovation, visit http://www.geico.com/information/mobile . Facebook(R) is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc.

INTRODUCTION

2011-10-25T10:44:00.000-07:00

Building an app on Facebook gives you the opportunity to deeply integrate into the core Facebook experience. Your app can integrate with many aspects of Facebook.com, including the News Feed and Notifications. All of the core Facebook Platform technologies, such as Social Plugins, the Graph API and Platform Dialogs are available to Apps on Facebook.

In this, we will explain the following concepts:

Canvas Page: The Page in which your app is loaded.
Social Channels: The key channels that help you grow your user base and re-engage existing users.
Analytics: Accessing analytics for your application.

If you wish to start building an App on Facebook now, please refer to our getting started tutorial. If you want to build an app to add to the tab of a Facebook Page then you should refer to Page Tabs.

Canvas Page

Apps on Facebook are web apps that are loaded in the context of Facebook in what we refer to as a Canvas Page. You can build your app using any language or tool chain that supports web programming, such as PHP, Python, Java etc.

Canvas for your app

Apps on Facebook are loaded into a Canvas Page. A Canvas Page is quite literally a blank canvas within Facebook on which to run your app. You populate the Canvas Page by providing a Canvas URL that contains the HTML, JavaScript and CSS that make up your app. When a user requests the Canvas Page, we load the Canvas URL within an iframe on that page. This results in your app being displayed within the standard Facebook chrome.

The canvas chrome is 760px width by default but you can set it to be a Fluid Canvas so that it is left aligned and takes up the full width and height of the user browser.

Bookmarks for quick re-engagement

Once a user starts using your app, we create a bookmark to enable users to easily navigate back to your app from within Facebook. These Bookmarks are available on the Facebook homepage as well as on the Canvas Page on the top right corner.

These Bookmarks are ordered based on how often and recently the user used your app. The red counters on the bookmarks notify users of outstanding Requests 2.0 related requests for your apps and encourage them to respond.

Real-time social app activity

To drive greater engagement with platform apps, on the upper right side of canvas pages we present a live ticker of app-specific updates from the users' friends.

When a user first enters an application, we present stories that are most relevant to that app. These stories are about the user and their friends interacting with the app or game currently being used.

As a user continues to use the app, we broaden what is presented to updates from friends using the app that the user both currently uses and has not yet installed.

Note that content in the app ticker is specific to the app context the user is in. So, if the user is playing a game, the messages the user will see will be specific to what their friends are doing in other games only.

Discovery stories

To help users discover new apps and games, Facebook generates ‘playing’ and ‘using’ stories by default, when friends use an app or play a game respectively. These stories show up in the canvas Ticker in real-time. The user is marked as playing if we have had a ping from them in the last 15 minutes. We ping 5 seconds in, then 5 minutes in, then every 10 minutes. We change the language to 'played' and 'used' if the user played or used the app more than 15 minutes ago.

Social Channels

To drive more traffic to apps on Facebook, we enable various channels that enable new users to discover your app as well as existing users to re-engage with your app. Each channel is designed to help engage users and our algorithms help surface the best content for each user. The current channels include:

Bookmarks

Bookmarks enable users to easily navigate back to your app from within Facebook. Bookmarks are automatically added for your app after the user engages with your apps. The bookmark will appear on left column of the homepage as well as on the top right of a Canvas Page. Users can add a bookmark to 'favorite' which pins them to the top. Bookmarks also show a counter next to them which represents the number of outstanding requests for the user for your app. The more link next to the app bookmarks takes the user to the app dashboard which shows the outstanding app requests as well as the full list of apps the user has authenticated.

Notifications

Notifications on Facebook are meant to provide prominent but lightweight heads-up about interesting changes to content relevant to users. Requests from your app may trigger a notification to users who will find it relevant.

Requests are a great way to enable users to invite their friends to your application. You can also use requests to have a user notify their friends to take a specific action in your app, such as accepting a gift or helping the user complete a quest.

There are two types of requests that can be sent from an app:

User-generated requests: These requests are confirmed by a user’s explicit action on a request dialog. These requests update the bookmark count for the recipient.
App-generated requests: These requests can be initiated and sent only to users who have authorized your app. You should use these requests to update the bookmark count to encourage a user to re-engage in the app (e.g., your friend finished her move in a game and it’s now your turn).

News Feed stories

The News Feed is shown immediately to users upon logging into Facebook, making it core to the Facebook experience.

Discovery stories

Similar to the discovery stories in the Ticker, Facebook also shares stories with friends when a user starts using a new app or first installs a new game. These installation discovery stories show up in friends' News Feed and enables users to discovery popular apps their friends are using. Similar to the Ticker discovery stories, you can turn these stories off by disabling the social discovery field in the developer app in the ‘On Facebook’ tab under the ‘Canvas’ section.

Publishing stories

In addition you can publish content to the stream using the Feed Dialog. You can prompt users to publish stories about what they are doing in your app. If a user chooses to publish, the story will appear on the user’s profile and may appear to the user’s friends’ News Feeds. Stories published from your app will include a link to your app, and can optionally include a rich attachment. You can learn more about how to enable users to publish stories from your app in our getting started tutorial.

Search

Each new app has its own App Profiles Page (for example, see Facebook Live's page). This Page is similar to other Pages and user profiles on Facebook, and it includes Wall and Info tabs as well as other configurable tabs. When users search for your app, this Page shows up in the search type-ahead or on the search results page. From this Page, users can navigate to your app or Like your Page. You can also choose to update users who have liked your profile Page with news about your app.

Analytics

Use Insights for your app to track how users are interacting with your app to build the best possible experience for your users. For app administrators, Insights includes feedback for stream stories, referral traffic to your app, a breakdown of what user actions contribute to active user count, demographics on authorized users and active users, and the number of times permissions are prompted and granted.

In addition, it provides diagnostics for your app so that you can track API errors as well as get access to allocations and throttling information.

You can access Insights for your app directly through the Insights Dashboard or by selecting your app in the Developer app and clicking the “insights" link.