Facebook to hold three new developer conferences

Events to take place in New York, London and Seoul

Since the middle of 2012, Facebook has taken a series of steps to lure developers and make it easier for them to develop apps using Facebook technology. Now the social network is launching series of conferences for mobile developers called Facebook Mobile DevCon 2013, it was announced Tuesday, so that developers can "spend the day with Facebook engineers and product managers."

The conference will be held in three cities: New York on April 18th, London on May 2nd and Seoul on May 7th.

"Over the last year, Facebook has worked hard to improve our mobile offerings. We've re-written our iOS and Android apps to be faster, we've re-engineered our iOS and Android SDKs to make it easier to implement Facebook Login and we've launched dedicated developer centers for iOS, Android and Mobile Web," Facebook engineer Simon Cross wrote.

"With over 680 million active users on mobile, Facebook is a great platform to grow your mobile app's user base, drive installs, and re-engage your existing users."

At the conference, developers will hear about topics that include:

• how to implement our iOS, Android and JS SDKs to drive installs and engagement
• how to best implement Facebook Login to bring trusted, cross-platform identity to your apps
• best practices for using Open Graph to share rich and engaging stories back to Facebook
• how to use Facebook to power engaging social, mobile games
• design tips and product best practices to increase user satisfaction
• the tools, libraries and techniques we at Facebook use to build our own iOS, Android and Mobile Web apps

Developers will also be given the opportunity to hear speakers from companies such as Fab.com, GetGlue,  and EyeEm.

Speakers at the events do not include any of the bigger names like Mark Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sandberg; instead it will people like Doug Purdy; the director of product for Platform at Facebook and engineers, like Cross, Michael Bolin, Christine Lu and Christine Abernathy.

"The day will be capped off with dinner, and a chance to speak one-on-one with Facebook engineers and product managers to review your app and debug any integration issues," Cross said.

Facebook's developer outreach

As Facebook said above, it has spent the last year or so improving its mobile performance, even declaring itself a mobile first company. It has also spent that time taking steps to lure developers. 

In September it created a most favored partner list for brands, choosing 12 companies out of 300-plus, from its Preferred Marketing Developer (PMD) program to award with a higher honor.

These 12 companies will be known as Strategic Preferred Marketing Developers, a distinction that was designed to make it easier for brands to find the best developers available on Facebook.

There was also an overhauling of the Android SDK in October, along with the introduction of a new Android Dev Center. 

New controls included Friend Picker, which allow developers to tag friends or find people who have installed their app; Places Picker, which shows places with customizable locations nearby; Profile Picture, which shows the profile picture of anything on Facebook, be it person, place or thing; and new login controls that are meant to simplify how user identify and app permission are managed.

In November, Facebook launched developer alerts to notify them of upcoming changes, problems and status updates. 

Developers will receive alerts if there are breaking changes, such as a function Facebook decides to remove; app status changes, such as when the Open Graph actions are approved; and policy violations or enforcements, like if an app does not list a privacy policy.

See the video of the announcement below:

(Image source: https://developers.facebook.com)