Facebook announced Friday a new JavaScript client library that will allow Facebook apps to be displayed on any website.
The client library allows users to make Facebook API calls from any web site and create Ajax Facebook applications on that website.
Wei Zhu from Facebook explains the benefits:
Since the library does not require any server-side code on your server, you can now create a Facebook application that can be hosted on any web site that serves static HTML. An application that uses this client library should be registered as an iframe type. This applies to either iframe Facebook apps that users access through the Facebook web site or apps that users access directly on the app’s own web sites. Almost all Facebook APIs are supported.
Nick O’Neill at All Facebook writes:
Want to build your own social gaming platform that resides on your own website but leverages the power of users’ Facebook relationships? Now you can! There had previously been applications that could leverage the Facebook API prior to the launch of the platform but there are some significant differences now versus before. The first significant difference is the broader access to Facebook’s core features that the platform provides.
I’m not sure anyone saw this move coming, but Facebook may have just changed the game again by essentially becoming an application host. It’s a clever move by Facebook in a year its competitors will get more serious about offering platforms themselves.
clever? Perhaps.
This announcement is in stark contrast to the profile clean-up tool. If people don’t like apps cluttering their Facebook profiles, will they really want them spreading across the wider Web?
isn’t what whan an API is for?
i mean. that’s what people do with google maps api, twitter api, flickr api… they develop apps that live in their websites, using data from the ‘host’…
hot mashups coming up baby…
Not clever. Fairly obvious. Is there a creativity vacuum in the valley?
While it’s an improvement, they still don’t get it. Yes, I think I have a better solution…and yes, my ego wants me to tell everybody. Luckily, I can control the ego.
The first link is not a working hyperlink
What is confusing is – it is described as an AJAX app – but later on it states it implies that it will be accessible by an IFrame
i am really not sure how to take this. it is a really intersting move, but rather confusing. how will people interact with this, if there are so concerend with privacy. this is the weirdest walled garden i’ve seen.
do they want to make developers stop building their own sites and focus on the facebook apps, since they can now display them anywhere?
how about some data portability…that would make a revolutionary announcement….unlike vampire hunting everywhere, and not just facebook!
Hi,
hmmm, When is the “web2.0″ blogging crowd going to get it.
All they seem to be doing is what microsoft was trying to do in the earlier stages of the 90’s Internet, thinking people might transition from the closed bulletin-boards, via windows/explorer/msn to a world it would control and profit from at every interaction -OK, so we’ve ended up with google doing some of that, But facebook is trying to do that more subtley, more widely, to the less tech-savvy crowd that doesn’t listen to the early “free” internet defenders, and bring everyone onto its playground; while everyone, as they did with google until it was intrenched and too late, fawns over it and hypes it further.
Once they have the user-base, and the tipping-point that ebay accumalated, what’s to stop them increasing charges, taking share of revenue, et al.
Wake up if you want any control (or just give in to convenience -then do the same with your taxes, travel, love, family, etc).
Kind regards,
Shakir Razak
Interesante noticia, si. Me ha gustado la pagina.
Bae ^^
Oh, and Duncan with respect, it’s in NO WAY orignal, unique, unexpected, etc.
It’s called Super-distribution, It’s been around “a while”, it is inevitable with the internet, and there was even a company that tried doing the same for classified advertising called Edgeio -You may have heard of it! :p
Kind regards,
shakir razak
This could be huge.
I’m really puzzled why this is being reported everywhere as such a big deal.
All it means is you can now access the API via JavaScript without exposing your secret key.
Developers have always been able to make use of the API on external websites, just very few do. I’m really not sure how being able to do so with client side only code is such a big deal.
Would anyone really develop a “social gaming platform” on a site that didn’t support server side coding?
I guess maybe the only thing is that all this reporting may make developers realise they been able to use the API outside of Facebook since the start.
Shakir
In terms of a social networking site such as Facebook it is fairly unique, at least at this level I’d think
TheChris
it is clever: it extends functionality for the Facebook Platform in a year there’s going to be increased competition. Another value add for Facebook platform developers. Logic might be a better description though. As Soap notes in the comments: hot mashups coming
Good move (and expected move)… we (all) need more cross-platform tools from facebook (and opensocial)…
Mike, why not use your TechCrunch Jet?
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Really Beneficial for all users.
http://tekno-wo...ld.blogspot.com
re: #6 jonathan t “do they want to make developers stop building their own sites and focus on the facebook apps, since they can now display them anywhere?”
It’s the other way around: this will *not* display facebook apps anywhere; it will enable apps outside of facebook to *import and use* the facebook social network.
Many websites want to add social networking features. Now they have a choice: recreate these features and force users to re-input their friends, or just use the features and data from facebook. The right choice is pretty obvious.
At iterating.com, we had considered writing a facebook app to leverage the facebook networks, but it was an annoyance to duplicate our service outside our site. We no longer have to, it’s fantastic!
For facebook it’s a bit of a risk, for that very reason: people are less likely to run an app inside facebook, and more likely to run it on their own site. But facebook already has 14,750 applications. So the next challenge is outside: become the ubiquitous, de facto social network provider.
This will give some much power the my facebook ID (because it brings my network of friends everywhere I use it) that facebook may also become the standard for IDs, just when Yahoo announced its support for openID…
Clever move, for sure. Another short-term game changer, although, there will perhaps come a point where the original concept of Facebook will become too diluted.
Facebook seems determined to take many of the best sites and services of the internet and offer them through Facebook as a sort of ‘mini internet’. At some point though, the ‘Facebook’ part might become irrelevant with users thinking “You know what, I’ll just use the ‘regular’ internet and not the cut down version that Facebook offers.” It could be AOL syndrome again.
Presumably the same thing’ll happen for app developers. There will come a point where Facebook becomes so diluted and cumbersome that the developers would be better just creating a regular website and not a FB app.
Everything comes full circle in the end.
It’s only clever if you use or care about facebook. I, for one, am off the myfacenamzbook.com grid and never happier. What is it about facebook that people seem to be so excited about anyway? Why is it that tmobile decided my wife and MUST have a facebook app on our blackberries with out asking us first?
When will this long national social nightmare end?
will be interesting where people would also like to have their sites viewed
For a bit a fun check out http://www.yupnup.com
Smart, clever, whatever… facebook isn’t that tight, and I agree w/ larry iunno what all you lametards are on. When I am at a bar the college kids here say myspace, only fags are like “wee facebook.”
Uhh also facebook is worthless… They can’t churn out decent revenue w/ these stupid business models.
Why would anyone advertise on facebook? It’s not targeted, and it’s garbage traffic.
Why would I build apps for facebook? Why not build apps for a web browser?
It is a cool way to keep in touch w/ friends… THAT’S IT, stop hyping the shit out of this wack ass bs… figures Duncan wrote this crap.
While some apps do have functionality I’m not interested in plastering everybody else’s junk all over my web sites, blogs, wikis, message boards wherever. I want my content on everybody else’s web sites, blogs, wikis, message boards and garden walls.
I see places such as Facebook and all the rest of the social apps talking about how many millions of visitors they get while I have to be content with a few thousand visiting my web sites. They got there by getting people talking about their great web sites and cool aps and putting their API and widgets all over the net. Why should I help them out? It gains me nothing at all.
Content is king. If you write articles about some topic such as how to beat up on debt collectors who abuse people who are in mortgage foreclosure or have huge credit card debt they can’t pay for whatever reason and you know what you are talking about then you have content that is valuable to an ever increasing number of people.
If you can’t write about anything more interesting than which political hack is going to win the election or XXX rated stuff then you have no useful content worth porting to anywhere but some garbage dump like facebook, twitter, ditter or slitter.
AOL has had something (very?) similar (at least the authentication aspect), for dogs years. For example stand-alone Miranda IM chat client lets you log on using your AOL username/password.
“The AOL Open Authentication API (OpenAuth) empowers third-party web sites and applications to authenticate AOL and AIM users through their Web Sites/Applications. An AIM or AOL-registered user can now log into a third-party Web Site/Application and seamlessly access AOL services or new services built on top of AOL services. “
I made one on facebook. If you have Arrington, Scoble, Fake Steve Jobs on your friends list, you can rightfully submit them as a douchebag….
http://apps.fac...om/topdouchebag
Now I need to make a widget….
At least for us this is really important. We will try it out asap. If there is any relevant feedback we will share it back here..
I am not sure if anybody see it coming but it is brilliant. Facebook is becoming not just a platform but an online operating system. Now somebody needs to develop one of these apps that is actually worthwhile and not a toy. And Facebook needs to start making $$$$$$$$$$$ not just $$$
Great move!
The notion that other websites would want to help the flavor of the month is crazy.
I still don’t understand the value of all of this. What’s wrong with me just having my address book on my local machine where big brother can’t exploit it? Why do I need facebook or myspace or anything else to stay in touch with my friends why I have an address book? If I lost touch with someone, I can find them through another of my friends.
I get that people want to have there place on the web. If that place is facebook or myspace – fine, so be it! but let’s not make them into more than they are – business trying to find ways to stay alive and stay relevant.
when is myspace going to get their platform going?? I think everyone with a facebook app is anxiously waiting for that to happen since there are still more users on myspace
This just made my job a hell of a lot easier.
I think the majority of the people that write these comments don’t have shit for vision as far as technology is concerned and are just pissed off people venting anger at their low-level tech jobs at work.
Granted it’s Sunday, but come on people. There’s a million different things you can do with the Internet and you’re just too old to realize the possibilities.
John – I’m guessing you are directing your reply at me so I will reply in kind.
I did not put down all technology I put down facebook. If you believe facebook is a shining example of innovation then you really don’t understand history or technology.
Facebook might have the attention right now but, IMHO, social networking is a loser service. That is what I was commenting on.
Since neither one of us knows what the other does for a living we should probably refrain from comments on each other’s jobs don’t you think?
Clever? Game changing? Brilliant? You’re all on crack. Woo hoo, now thousands of retarded useless apps are available to mashups via the facebook proxy, big whoopty doo, they’re all still useless crap. There is nothing about Facebook that is game changing. Email was game changing, chat was game changing, the web was game changing, google search was game changing. Facebook is just a website people, it could drop off the internet right now and *MOST* of the internet would barely notice. You Facebook fanboys need to get a clue. If you think Facebook is game changing, you don’t know what the game is.
Perhaps it’s clever in Australia. Or Britain, Australia’s ally in the Global War on Creative Thinking.
If you had all the users of these social services in a room together, they’d spend the day talking about themselves to no one in particular instead of to each other. There’s nothing social about narcissism.
Like the plague, I can only hope this will run its course. But I’m secretly hoping, in the end, it takes a lot of dead wood with it.
Hmmm….this can actually be a breakthrough…. I am wondering is PHP required? or just the javascript…??
bookmarked @ http://livbit.com
I’m sorry, but once Facebook got away from it’s core operation, and started to throw sh*t on the wall hoping it sticks; the real ” writing” is on the wall. Give it a couple of years and it will be another has been. This idea of , ” if more people won’t come to the mountain, we will take the mountain to them, is self dooming. Where do they get off thinking they are the end all for the web?Zuck needs to lay off the weed.
Facebook does what it does well, but FB has never ever ‘changed the game’. That term is used WAY too loosely, and it’s really just fanboyism.
This is a good business move for FB, but since there are a lot of different apps and services you can already use cross platform it’s really just FB FOLLOWING the game to keep up with a quickly changing landscape. They should surely be given credit for just that.
The only new thing they really bring here is the open gate into the FB usership which I have to say for me PERSONALLY is a negative and why I probably won’t be sniffing their APIs. Again, I’m not saying this isn’t great for the a big slice of the socialz pie chart, but the gaggle of writers queuing up to sew their tongues into the back of FB’s Y-fronts is getting just a tad nauseating.
I smell Cooper Lawrence.
This is a smart move. A major theme that will play out in 2008 is flipping the model that turbocharged 2007. Instead of bringing apps to the social graph, we’ll see various ways to bring the social to applications, sites, and devices.
If you’re a business person, who runs a corporate website or works at an interactive agency, I’ve translated what this means to you, and also list out some opportunities
http://www.web-...web-strategist/
Maybe someone can build up a competitor to Ning based on this. Your own social network, but with all the friends and features from FB already built in.
It is getting quite diluted, and relying on developers outside of the company to launch new tools/games etc seems like they built a huge platform and don’t know what for.
Dope Wars!!!
The strategy with our FB app was to include it as an enhancement for users of both TravelMuse and FB. This essentially does all the work for us, so I’m pleased.
http://apps.fac...com/travelmuse/
It appears TechCrunch, TechMeme, and others have all drunken the Kool-Aid – this announcement is *not* that significant guys! This functionality has *alway* been in Facebook – the ability to access the Facebook API from any website. The significance of this move is the fact that you can now do it on any static HTML page, no server side code required, improving the chances of limited hosting environments being able to write apps for the Facebook API. An app is still required to be created in Facebook, I cannot create apps specifically for my own website. Nothing different here folks!
http://www.jess...orm-last-night/
Facebook is for losers
Yahoo must be loving this
So can you call any application? Whats to stop people from wrapping another application with ads and just distributing other people’s apps?
Same thing that stops you from wrapping other people’s websites with ads I imagine, nothing. You can reverse proxy Google if you like and replace their ads with you own. Technology can’t prevent these kinds of things, legal threats do.
Very clever!
I am giving bebo 3 months maximum to copy / paste.
Anyway I think that the people at Facebook are really trying to make something powerful and I respect that.
I agree with ZOMGPWN!
This is a good business move for FB, but since there are a lot of different apps and services you can already use cross platform it’s really just FB FOLLOWING the game to keep up with a quickly changing landscape. They should surely be given credit for just that. And anouther thing webmasters dont need these thing´s if they have good products to offer ro their visitors
Warmly
Thordur
I think this is s grest move for plateform plays like Facebook, broadbandmechanics and in2apps.com. Making sure that the API’s used by these plateforms allow the development community to have as much distribution as possible is key.