Platform Updates: Operation Developer Love

Last week we introduced the Subscribe Button for Websites, announced the removal of App Profile Pages on February 1st, 2012, provided a recap on our recent Social Games Hack and published a tutorial on debugging Open Graph apps.

Finally, we updated the JavaScript SDK to only support OAuth 2.0. This new JavaScript SDK was first announced in July with the requirement that all apps to migrate by October 1, 2011. If your app was affected, read more about the specific changes that you need to make here. A friendly reminder that it is important to follow the Facebook Developer Blog or the Roadmap for breaking change updates. This can be done by email or RSS.

Platform Changes

This week we completed the discontinuation of the Dashboard APIs with the exception of dashboard.incrementCount, dashboard.decrementCount, dashboard.setCount and dashboard.getCount methods. All apps should upgrade to the new Requests 2.0.

Upcoming changes on January 1, 2012

Deprecating the FB.Data.* JS SDK APIs This will be no longer supported and will not be available to new apps.Deprecating FB.Canvas.setAutoResize We have renamed FB.Canvas.setAutoResize to FB.Canvas.setAutoGrow so that the method more accurately represents its function. Fb.Canvas.setAutoResize will be removed.Deprecating FBML FBML will no longer be supported as of January 1, 2012. Aside from security and privacy related bugs, we will not fix any bugs related to FBML after January 1, 2012. On June 1, 2012 FBML endpoints will be removed from PlatformAll apps will be opted into “Upgrade to Requests 2.0” and “Requests 2.0 Efficient” Existing apps will be opted into “Requests 2.0 Efficient” and “Upgrade to Requests 2.0” migrations and all developers must ensure that they are using the correct request_id format and deleting requests appropriately. Details hereEnforcing Credits Policy We have added a new policy to the Facebook Credits Terms that prohibits routing Credits from one app to another app without our prior authorization.

2.14 You may not accept Credits in one app and deliver or transfer the purchase to the user in another app without our prior authorization. For example, an app solely designed to facilitate transactions is not permitted.

Apps that are not compliant by January 1, 2012 run the risk of having their Credits disabled shortly after.

Please refer to the Platform Roadmap for more info on these and other upcoming changes.

Bug Activity from 12/6 to 12/13

210 bugs were reported89 bugs were reproducible and accepted (after duplicates removed)61 bugs were by design27 bugs were fixed71 bugs were duplicate, invalid, or need more information

Bugs fixed from 12/6 to 12/13

Activity on facebook.stackoverflow.com this week:

140 questions asked16 answered, 11% answered rate50 replied, 36% reply rate

Platform Updates for Games Developers

As part of ongoing efforts to optimize Platform for game developers, and to reflect the diversity of games growing on Platform, we’ve made updates to the games categories as well as some of the main communication channels, including Bookmarks and the Apps and Games Dashboard. Additionally, we are testing new feed stories on mobile, to improve app engagement. Finally we have also published a Games Tutorial to provide game developers best practices for building on Facebook Platform.

As the types of games on Facebook become more diverse, we’re updating and expanding the list of game categories. It’s important that your game is categorized correctly, as we use categories to surface relevant games for users, which can increase distribution for your games. In order to streamline the categories, we’ve removed the “Other” category. If your game is categorized as “Other”, you will need to pick a new category.

Here are the additional updates:

We’ve added new categories for “Casino”, “Family”, “Sports”, “Strategy” and “Word”.”Role Playing” is now “Adventure”.”Virtual World” is now “Simulation”.

Here is the full list of the updated Games Categories:

To set your Game Category, go to the Developer App and then hit “Edit Settings” for your app. You can now categorize your app by navigating to About > Basic Info and selecting “Games” in the first drop down menu in the category field and then selecting the relevant Game sub-category in the second drop down menu.

Bookmarks are one of the top drivers of re-engagement for apps. We recently increased the number of bookmarks at the top right of every canvas page from four to six. Early results have shown that this has increased referrals from canvas bookmarks to games by 20%.

We’ve also updated bookmark counters on the home page to clear automatically once clicked, similar to how notifications behave. Previously, these counters would clear once the requests expired or were deleted by the developer. This update should make it clearer to users when they have a pending action and drive greater re-engagement.

We combined the Games and Apps dashboards into a single dashboard, called “Apps and Games”. The updated dashboard will allow users to see all their requests and invites in a single page and will highlight new apps and games to them. Invites from friends are pinned to the top of the dashboard, and the top apps section showcases the apps and games friends are using most.

We believe a combined dashboard will grow the apps and games ecosystem by creating a single place where users can discover and re-engage with your apps.

We’ve recently begun testing aggregated game stories for mobile platform apps to drive traffic from mobile devices to games. Gamers and non-gamers alike will see stories for the games their friends are playing the most. As we gather user and developer feedback from this test, we’ll continue to iterate on the feature as we focus on making feed a strong acquisition channel for developers.

To track referrals coming from this story you look for the ref param “feed_gameplay”.

Earlier this month we hosted the first ever Social Games Hack at the Facebook HQ and have since posted videos for all the content that was presented there. As a follow up we have created a Games Tutorial to help developers get started with building social games on Facebook. This tutorial provides several pro-tips and best practices for using our social channels, building seamless experiences on Canvas and finally monetization strategies on Facebook.

Please provide us thoughts and feedback in the comments below.

Platform Updates: Operation Developer Love

Last week we introduced the Subscribe Button for Websites, announced the removal of App Profile Pages on February 1st, 2012, provided a recap on our recent Social Games Hack and published a tutorial on debugging Open Graph apps.

Finally, we updated the JavaScript SDK to only support OAuth 2.0. This new JavaScript SDK was first announced in July with the requirement that all apps to migrate by October 1, 2011. If your app was affected, read more about the specific changes that you need to make here. A friendly reminder that it is important to follow the Facebook Developer Blog or the Roadmap for breaking change updates. This can be done by email or RSS.

Platform Changes

This week we completed the discontinuation of the Dashboard APIs with the exception of dashboard.incrementCount, dashboard.decrementCount, dashboard.setCount and dashboard.getCount methods. All apps should upgrade to the new Requests 2.0.

Upcoming changes on January 1, 2012

Deprecating the FB.Data.* JS SDK APIs This will be no longer supported and will not be available to new apps.Deprecating FB.Canvas.setAutoResize We have renamed FB.Canvas.setAutoResize to FB.Canvas.setAutoGrow so that the method more accurately represents its function. Fb.Canvas.setAutoResize will be removed.Deprecating FBML FBML will no longer be supported as of January 1, 2012. Aside from security and privacy related bugs, we will not fix any bugs related to FBML after January 1, 2012. On June 1, 2012 FBML endpoints will be removed from PlatformAll apps will be opted into “Upgrade to Requests 2.0” and “Requests 2.0 Efficient” Existing apps will be opted into “Requests 2.0 Efficient” and “Upgrade to Requests 2.0” migrations and all developers must ensure that they are using the correct request_id format and deleting requests appropriately. Details hereEnforcing Credits Policy We have added a new policy to the Facebook Credits Terms that prohibits routing Credits from one app to another app without our prior authorization.

2.14 You may not accept Credits in one app and deliver or transfer the purchase to the user in another app without our prior authorization. For example, an app solely designed to facilitate transactions is not permitted.

Apps that are not compliant by January 1, 2012 run the risk of having their Credits disabled shortly after.

Please refer to the Platform Roadmap for more info on these and other upcoming changes.

Bug Activity from 12/6 to 12/13

210 bugs were reported89 bugs were reproducible and accepted (after duplicates removed)61 bugs were by design27 bugs were fixed71 bugs were duplicate, invalid, or need more information

Bugs fixed from 12/6 to 12/13

Activity on facebook.stackoverflow.com this week:

140 questions asked16 answered, 11% answered rate50 replied, 36% reply rate