Facebook launches new features to platform

Social networking giant one step closer to socially connecting the Web

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO took the stage on Wednesday morning at the f8 conference in San Francisco to announce what the company has coined, "the next evolution of the Facebook Platform."  The features are in line with the social networks theme of connecting people across the Web through the social graph, basically social relationships with one another.  

The CEO shared in blog post,

"Today at our third f8, we are making it so all websites can work together to build a more comprehensive map of connections and create better, more social experiences for everyone. We have redesigned Facebook Platform to offer a simple set of tools that sites around the web can use to personalize experiences and build out the graph of connections people are making."

The new features announced by Facebook include:

Social plugins - these are probably the easiest to integrate into your site, as Facebook said they can be used via a simple line of HTML.  The plugins allow users to add the very familiar Facebook "Like" button so users can basically expand on their interests and personalize pages.  There's also an Activity Feed plugin and a Recommendations plugin which shows users friends what they like and suggest on their sites.  

Open Graph Protocol - opens up the social graph and lets developers pages become objects they can add to their Facebook profiles.  The advantage for developers is that their by leveraging their users Facebook graphs, their pages can become more personalized and relevant to the user.

Graph API - Facebook describes this as a, "drastically simplified way for developers to use Facebook Platform."  It's basically a redesign of Facebook's core API which makes it so all objects and APIs can be accessed via URLs.  Facebook also said it's adopted OAuth 2.0, a Web standard for authentication and authorization.  

So when should you expect to start seeing these new features rolled out across the Web?  Facebook announced several partners already integrating these updates like Pandora, which as soon as a user goes on now, will have customized stations based on their Likes in Facebook as well as recommendations from friends about music they like, definitely a more personalized and social experience from the Pandora we've come to know, this will all be automated now by leveraging Facebook.  Yelp and Microsoft Docs are also partners at launch.

 

 
These features will only help to step up Facebook's undeniable presence across the Web.  The social network now has over 400 million users and continuing to grow at a rapid rate.  Zuckerberg believes, "the future of the web will be filled with personalized experiences…we're happy today to take the next important step to get there."  

The company is aiming high, Zuckerberg said Facebook estimates it will serve 1 billion "Like" button calls with its new partners by the end of today.