April 29, 2010

Facebook Announces Some Exciting New Changes at F8 Confrence!

Facebook is constantly changing, updating, and innovating their social networking platform. At the F8 Conference developers and entrepreneurs collaborated on the future of personalized and social technologies. Specifically, they explored a variety of topics including new tools and techniques, business growth strategies, and open technologies. The net-net here: Facebook is making YOUR internet experience more about YOU.


Here’s a sample of how they’ll do it:

Open Graph Protocol (AKA linking your findings on the web to your Facebook):
Basically this is a way that YOU, the Facebook user, can link a webpage you find interesting to your page. This is a way that you can show your friends on Facebook what you find and what you like about it. Simultaneously the webpage itself is working to show you similar things that you may like on their page. Therefore, YOUR web experience will be customized for you while the brand creates a more simple way for you to connect to their website.

Social Plug-ins (Bring the “Liking” Obsession to the World Wide Web):
Expect to see “Like, Activity Feed, Recommendations, and Social Bar” on various websites to provide an incredibly personalized social experience!

Graph API (For the Company’s Use):
This service announced by Facebook employs simple and elegant forms of technology for companies to use in conjunction with the “Open Graph Tool”.

So what does this mean for you?
There have been tons of improvements to Facebook, and as a self-proclaimed “nerd” for all this stuff, I’ll keep it simple…
Facebook wants to customize and personalize your Internet experience; they do this by providing Facebook Page owners specific HTML or “Codes” that allow you to surf your favorite websites and connect it back to your personal Facebook along with the Facebook Page it pertains to. Some codes provide the feature of bypassing logins to even allowing you to “Like” and “Share” various things you’ve enjoyed on participating website’s content. Another feature, after you’ve “Liked” or “Shared” something to your friends on Facebook, the website can recommend similar content within that particular site that you may also enjoy.

(“Who wears short shorts?” Show all your friends what you love on outside sites to your Facebook)
(I can already see my birthday “wish-list” forming on my page!)

You may have also noticed some Facebook personal pages changed to a new format, this is mainly for you (the Facebook user) to “Like” various bands, movies, television shows, and movies. By doing this, after you log onto something like Pandora or Hulu, music and shows will be automatically chosen based on what you’ve “Liked” via Facebook.
Some think this may be Facebook taking over the web… but with over 400 Million active users, this is a great way to give back to those who use the site and allow them to optimize and simplify their internet experience.

Happy Surfing!
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