Facebook's F8 conference brought with it quite a lot of new features and announcements. The thing that got the most attention, from Facebook and the press, is the revamped profile, dubbed the Timeline. It's a great redesign of a cornerstone feature of the site and deserves all the attention it's getting.
But some of Facebook's other announcements will have a much bigger impact on the future of the site and the web as a whole.
Facebook opened up, so to speak, the Open Graph. It debuted at last year's F8. At that time, the Open Graph APIs enabled websites to dig deep into Facebook data and customize the experience for each user.
Now, Facebook is taking it one step further, developers will be able to create whole new ways of interacting with Facebook and will be able to insert apps into more places on the site.
"We are now extending the Open Graph to include arbitrary actions and objects created by 3rd party apps and enabling these apps to integrate deeply into the Facebook experience," Facebook
explained.
"After a user adds your app to their Timeline, app specific actions are shared on Facebook via the Open Graph," it said.
"As your app becomes an important part of how users express themselves, these actions are more prominently displayed throughout the Facebook Timeline, News Feed, and Ticker," it added.
The idea is to have the apps as extensions to everything on Facebook, rather than a separate entity. Likewise, while the apps may end up in the News Feed or the Ticker, it's the user that activates this, albeit by simply using the app, and Facebook that decides what gets in and what doesn't.
"The Open Graph allows apps to model user activities based on actions and objects. A running app may define the ability to 'run' (action) a 'route' (object). A reading app may define the ability to 'read' (action) a 'book' (object)," Facebook listed some of the possibilities the new Open Graph allows.
Automatic sharing of everything you listen to, everything you read, every run you take
This new type of apps is supported by a rather radical new idea, automatic sharing. You don't have to "Like" a song for it to end up on your news feed, you simply have to listen to it on Spotify, or Mog or any of the other services that will integrate the Open Graph.
Every time you listen to a song, it will show up in the
newly launched Facebook Ticker. Every time you read a news article via an app or an website which integrates the Open Graph, it will show up in the ticker.
This is as powerful as it is scary. Most people don't want to broadcast everything they do, but, on the other hand, they won't actively "Like" or post links to many of the things that they would want to share because it's too much of a hassle.
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