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Liveblogging the Facebook Developer Conference
The TechCrunch team is on site at the Facebook Developer conference, and we’ll be live blogging the news. Mark Zuckerberg’s Keynote starts at 1:30 pm PST.
David Glazer (Director of Engineering, Friend Connect) is here in the audience (which is about 1500 people), it looks like he will announce something. Perhaps they are announcing some kind of agreement
Facebook’s press release is here.
Live Coverage
2:48 PM: Great Apps can integrate with users just like native Facebook apps, and they get early access to features. The Great Apps program is in alpha stage and the first two partners are iLike and Causes. There will be a strong enforcement system with all apps, and they will disable apps that are a problem. Over the last year they’ve disabled apps for violation of privacy or other policies. They take this very seriously, he says.
2:47 PM: The second announcement is the Facebook Great Apps Program (Top Tier program). They embody all ten of the guiding principles, and they advance the mission of Facebook.
2:46 PM: They’re announcing two new programs: a verification program is first - this is the lower tier of the two programs. Starting in September they will invite apps that are secure, respectful and transparent to apply to be verified. Trusted apps get a special badge in the directory and app page.
2:44 PM: They have partnerships with partners to help developer (Microsoft), host and scale. They are launching a new developer website that gives all the information needed for a quick start. He says 1000 apps have been submitted to the Facebook fund. They are announcing a new competition today. $2M will be given out over the next two months. Facebook will select 25 finalists who will each get 25k. Users will vote on finalists who will each get 250k.
2:43 PM: He says they must keep the ecosystem safe for users and fair for developers. A year ago equal distribution became overwhelming to users, then they made restrictive changes that hurt apps. Going forward they will have different rules. They are announcing several programs to help app developers. Get Started Quickly tools like adding easy FBML tags.
2:42 PM: He says that they’ve learned a lot in the last year, as they’ve had lots of challenges. Facebook is listening to the community. They’re trying to partner more closely with developers. He says they are making organizational changes that let developers incorporate feedback during the dev process, and they’re creating full time community management organization
2:40 PM: “Security is a big part of it, apps can’t share information with other users unless they obey privacy settings. Apps must also be respectful of the users attention and time. Don’t make users invite 20 friends before you use the app, or spam friends without them knowing. Apps must be very transparent. Users should get what they expect when they click, not an interstitial ad. Design is also important - clean design is a must. And apps must be fast loading and responsive. As the apps get faster, users use them more. Apps need to focus on being robust and scaling properly as they grow.”
2:39 PM: “Building trustworthy applications is important because we live in an ecosystem with network effects. If users leave, everyone suffers. Apps must be safe and trusted.”
2:37 PM: He says apps must be useful. The carpool app is great example, which lets users find carpool buddies. “Apps must also be expressive”- The graffiti app that lets users draw on friends profiles, is a good example. Finally, meaningful apps must be engaging. He says Playfish makes games that are highly engaging. Facebook users have played over 900 million minutes of Playfish games. That’s about 1800 years.
2:35 PM: Benjamin is announcing “guiding principles for great applications” which are based on dialog with community. It’s based on three pillars: meaningful, trustworthy and well designed. The best apps make use of the social graph. Applications must be social. A good example is the Lil Green Patch app, which helps users fight global warming by interacting with other users.
2:33 PM: Benjamin Ling, Director of Platform Program Management is now on stage talking about the “State of Platform.” He says that over $200m has been invested in Facebook apps, $34m this week alone. Additionally, 13 different ad networks have launched that pay out tens of millions of dollars to app developers. He says, “venture capital, ad networks, developers and academics are the ecosystem that makes Facebook platform a success.”
2:32 PM: Mark wraps things up, that appears to be the end of the announcements.
2:31 PM: Zuckerberg asked all Facebook employees who work on platform to stand up, then asked all app developers to stand up.
2:29 PM: “Give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.” - Facebook’s mission statement
2:28 PM: To recap, he’s talked about new profiles and the highlighting of the news feed, the second item is Facebook Connect. The new profile launched Monday, he says. Facebook Connect will launch developer keys starting today - there will be a beta period.
2:26 PM: That’s it for launch partners. Mark is back on stage.
2:25 PM: A new site will have a “my friends” tab that shows reviews by friends in various cities.
2:23 PM: Mike Philips from Citisearch is taking the stage. He says they are launching a new site, where sharing information is a big piece. They are integrating with Facebook Connect. When a user looks for a hotel, restaurant, etc., Citisearch already has lots of reviews and data, but not a way to link up reviews from friends.
2:22 PM: When you login to comment, users can sign in via Movable Type or Facebook. If you sign in with Facebook, it will display changes - light blue boxes outline your friend’s comments.
2:20 PM: David Recordon from Six Apart just took the stage. They are releasing a plugin for Movable Type that allows people to comment using their Facebook profiles. Users can decide to profiles or keep them private.
2:17 PM: Digg is now allowing people to sign into Digg via Facebook or OpenID. There is no requirement to sign up for a Digg account.
2:15 PM: Launch partners are now coming on stage. First up is Digg by Joe Stump.
2:13 PM: Facebook Connect can show you which of your Facebook friends are also on the outside service, so you can link up with them there too. They are also allowing people to leave comments and requests on third party sites.
2:12 PM: Facebook Connect will let applications share data with Facebook. Users can bring Facebook friends with them to outside sites.
2:11 PM: Mark is now talking about Facebook Connect.
2:10 PM: He says he wants Facebook to be the platform and tools provider, but let apps do anything social they want.
2:08 PM: Mark says we are going to see the decentralization of social networking into apps on the web. Things will decentralize further, apps can run anywhere on the web, not just on social network platforms. They will all work together, just be decentralized.
2:05 PM: People (including us) are writing wall posts for Mark since he has his profile live on stage, but it looks like he’s actually using a fake profile, it shows just 8 friends.
2:03 PM: Mark is now showing a live demo of the new home page.
2:02 PM: Mark says they haven’t completely gotten rid of app boxes, they’re added a tab for them. Some apps really need them. Users can also add tabs for individual apps.
1:59 PM: He says the apps that leverage the news feed the best will be the ones that succeed.
1:58 PM: “The most important part of the profile is the wall and the news feed, which have now been merged. They also give developers an incentive to build apps that let users share a lot of information. This is a lot better than an application box, which people don’t interact with as much.”
1:56 PM: Mark is now talking about the new profile pages and how it fits in with their current goals.
1:54 PM: Mark says that over the last year Facebook hasn’t done enough to reward applications that provide a lot of long term value, and they haven’t punished the ones abusing the system.
1:53 PM: Mark is talking about lessons Facebook has learned. He says that they released the platform as quickly as possible, it wasn’t fully baked yet, and they didn’t anticipate the huge adoption.
1:52 PM: Mark says the most powerful tool on Facebook today is the News Feed. Traffic went up by 50% when they first launched news feed in late 2006.
1:51 PM: Mark is now talking about the social graph, a concept he introduced at the first f8 conference.
1:49 PM: LivingSocial just announced they received $5M in Funding, Flixster received $6M from Allen and Company, and Zynga got $29M from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Zuckerberg says, “There has been more than $200 million invested in the ecosystem.”
1:47 PM: David Glazer (Director of Engineering, Friend Connect) is here in the audience, it looks like he will announce something. Perhaps they are announcing some kind of agreement
1:45 PM: “We’re opening up the translation tool to allow apps to be translated as well…We now have more than 400k developers building on top of the platform. The developer community is spread around the world. More than half are outside of the US.
1:43 PM: Mark is now talking about opening up Facebook for translations made by users. They started with Spanish and French, and now the site is available in over 60 languages.
1:41 PM: Mark is looking back over the last year and says it’s been pretty crazy. Over 24 million people were using Facebook a year ago - today they are at 90 million people.
1:38 PM: Mark says its time to take the Facebook platform to the next level. On a recent vacation he realized (1) they want to build a product that really lets you connect with people, and (2) they want to extend the concept of presence, have more open connections and share more. They want to make the world a more open place
“The most important information is only available if people share it, and have the power and the tools to do so”
1:35 PM: Mark takes the stage and welcomes the crowd.
1:30 PM: Still waiting for Mark Zuckerberg to take the stage.
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Facebook Launches Preferred App Program, Translation Services
Facebook just issued the press release for today’s F8 conference. The release is below, with the most important points bolded.:
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Facebook f8 Conference, July 23, 2008 – Facebook today introduced the latest advancements to Facebook Platform during its annual f8 developer conference, calling on its more than 400,000 developers to connect their Websites with Facebook through Facebook Connect, extend their applications to dozens of languages worldwide, and make use of new developer resources to help them succeed.
“We opened Facebook Platform with a belief that community innovation can give people the tools, and the power, to share and communicate in ways that Facebook can’t build on its own. We’re humbled by what our developer community has accomplished,” said Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook. “We’re confident that the changes we’re presenting today help developers build more meaningful social applications that enable users to share more information.”
Facebook earlier this week released its new site design for users to preview and test, which is being gradually rolled out to Facebook’s more than 90 million active users over the coming weeks. The changes announced today, along with those launched earlier this week, leverage Facebook’s powerful feed system to give developers a new way to gain visibility and help users share and discover more information.
Leveraging the Power of Feeds
“Across the Web, content creation has become easier and more immediate, resulting in a continuous stream of information through what we call ‘feeds’,” said Zuckerberg. “The power of feeds on Facebook is their ability to move you into a world where you receive relevant information in a social context wherever you are on the Web.”
The new site design emphasizes dynamic content and surfaces the most recent and relevant information and activity through feeds, both on News Feed and the Wall. For developers, the new site design enables even deeper integration within the profile for their applications. By taking advantage of the improvements with feeds on Facebook and the other new features, developers can more efficiently distribute their applications and gain more ways to engage meaningfully with users.
“We’re confident that the new profile and integration points will give entrepreneurs and developers even greater opportunities to build their businesses and deliver on the promise of Facebook Platform,” said Ben Ling, director of platform program management, Facebook. “One goal of the new site design is to align Facebook Platform with users’ interests who will see a new class of applications emerge that provide deeper engagement and a better experience.”
Making the Web More Social with Facebook Connect
Facebook announced that 24 Web sites and applications have joined its efforts to make the Web more open and connected through Facebook Connect. A developer ‘sandbox’ is now available so developers worldwide can start working with Facebook Connect.
Facebook believes that enabling users to take their identity and friends with them around the Web, while trusting that their privacy is protected, makes the Web more open and connected. Facebook Connect allows users to bring their Facebook account information, friends and privacy to any third party website, desktop application or device.
Digg, Six Apart, and Citysearch were featured live during Zuckerberg’s keynote today demonstrating their planned implementations of Facebook Connect. Facebook Connect will be generally available to users in the fall.
“Digg surfaces the best content on the Web as voted on by its community of 26 million,” said Kevin Rose, founder of Digg. “Facebook Connect will help us promote more conversations on Digg by giving Facebook’s 90 million users an opportunity to sign-in to Digg with their Facebook accounts and become part of the active Digg community. This allows both Facebook and Digg users to more easily share the content they care about with the people they care about.”
With Facebook Connect, users benefit from the following features:
• Trusted Authentication – easily authenticate into partner sites using their Facebook account
• Real Identity – leverage their real identity across the Web in a trusted environment
• Friend Linking – take their friends with them wherever they go, enabling trusted social context anywhere on the Web
• Dynamic Privacy – assurance that the same privacy settings users have set up on Facebook will follow them wherever they decide to login throughout the Web
• Social Distribution – share actions on partner sites with their friends back on Facebook through feeds Additional planned participants at launch include: Amiando, CBS.com, CNET, CollegeHumor, Disney-ABC Television Group, Evite, Flock, Hulu, Kongregate, Loopt, Plaxo, Radar, Red Bull, Seesmic, Socialthing!, StumbleUpon, The Insider, Twitter, Uber, Vimeo and Xobni.
Expanding Facebook Platform Internationally
As a result of the worldwide success of Facebook’s translation system, the company has opened up the Translation Application to any developer using Facebook Platform. Beginning today, any Facebook developer can make their application available in any of the 20 languages that are currently available on Facebook, with 69 more coming soon.
Developers can now access the Translation Application to either translate their applications themselves, or open up translation of their application to Facebook users around the world, who will work together to define it in their native languages.
This innovative approach combines the passion of Facebook users with technologies that are systematic and manageable. The Translation Application enables developers to get high-quality, fully-translated applications in front of users, no matter where they live or what language they speak – much faster than ever before, and without ever having to pick up a dictionary.
“Through Facebook’s international platform, the possibilities are endless for both developers and users,” said Chamath Palihapitiya, vice president of growth, Facebook. “With no language barriers to break through, developers can take the stage with an even larger audience of users from all over the world, and users will have access to even more great applications than ever before built by the world’s best developers.”
Helping Developers Succeed
When Facebook Platform launched in 2007, it gave developers the opportunity to create applications that are deeply social and meaningful to users. More than 400,000 developers and entrepreneurs from 160 countries have signed up and developed applications. For the next phase of Platform, Facebook has focused on ensuring that developers have the resources and incentives they need to build applications that deliver on the vision of Facebook Platform.
Facebook launched four new and expanded developer programs and resources:
1) Great Apps Program Facebook’s Great Apps program rewards applications that deliver value to users and advance the Facebook Platform vision. Great Apps embody Facebook’s guiding principles for social applications through their meaningful, trustworthy and well-designed user experiences. Great Apps will gain greater visibility on Facebook, earlier access to new features and more feedback from Facebook. Facebook will open the Great Apps selection process to developers in September.
Facebook is excited to announce iLike and Causes as the inaugural Great Apps. “Facebook Platform provided iLike with an unprecedented opportunity to become one of the world’s leading online music services in just over a year,” said Ali Partovi, CEO of iLike. “I’m delighted that Facebook is committed to recognizing the apps that are most appreciated by users. We expect the Great Apps program to have a very positive impact on the entire Facebook Platform ecosystem.”
“The Causes application enables socially-conscious Facebook users to unlock the power of their social network in order to raise money and awareness for the causes they care about,” said Sean Parker, chairman and co-founder of Causes. “With more than 100,000 causes created by 12 million Facebook users, we’ve had remarkable success building user trust and value on Facebook and we’re excited to join the Great Apps program.”
2) Application Verification Facebook is introducing the Application Verification program which is designed to offer extra assurances to help users identify applications they can trust — applications that are secure, respectful and transparent, and have demonstrated commitment to compliance with Platform policies. Verified applications will benefit from added visibility on Facebook. The program is a complement to Facebook’s ongoing policy enforcement to keep the Platform ecosystem robust, and will be open to developers in September.
3) Expanded fbFund Competition In an effort to grow the Facebook ecosystem, fbFund was introduced last year to provide resources to developers, by eliminating some of the challenges of starting a company. As part of a new competition, Facebook will award nearly $10 million in non-recourse grants to the top 25 applications. In addition to the Facebook judging committee, this year users will test applications and vote on their favorites after the first round deadline of August 29, 2008.
Winners from the first fbFund competition were announced today and include: ConnectedWeddings, CourseFeed by Classtop, GoalCamp, HotBerry, J2Play, LuckyCal, MyListo, Podclass, Trazzler, and Zimride Carpool App.
4) New Developer Website Facebook is introducing a new website for Facebook Platform. Improvements include better navigation and cleaner access to the blog, wiki and forum to encourage community involvement. Facebook will also start highlighting social, meaningful and trustworthy application case studies.
For additional information on the announcements made today at f8, please visit the f8 Press Page at: www.facebook.com/f808Press.
About Facebook Founded in February 2004, Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Anyone can sign up for Facebook and interact with the people they know in a trusted environment. Facebook is a privately-held company and is headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif.
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Trouble in Online Travel: American Airlines Ditches Kayak (Maybe Orbitz Too)
After years of ceding the upper hand in online travel to booking sites like Kayak and Orbitz, American Airlines is about to fight back. According to the CEO of a competing travel site, American Airlines is about to pull its airline listings out of Kayak and is considering doing the same with Orbitz. If it does so, other airlines such as Continental and Northwest may follow suit.
Airlines don’t like the booking sites because they have to pay them a referral fee for every ticket they sell, as opposed to capturing the full fare when travelers book on their individual sites. Even though that only amounts to a few dollars per ticket, every dollar counts to the troubled airlines—especially now with fuel prices going sky-high and the consumer spending going down.
American Airlines has a particular beef with Kayak because it tends to show AA flights through its partnership with Orbitz instead of directly from American. That means American has to pay a double tax, once to Kayak and once to Orbitz. (The deal between Kayak and Orbitz, charges the competing CEO, was meant to drive up traffic numbers on Kayak as it was potentially seeking an IPO prior to raising $200 million instead last December).
The decision to sever ties with Kayak supposedly has already been made. The only question is whether Orbitz can salvage its relationship with the airline. This should strengthen competing travel sites, especially newer ones that link directly to the airlines like Mobissimo and Yapta.
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Pivot: A Practical Example, Part 4 - Data Binding
