Facebook Timeline & Open Graph Platform Briefing 08/2012

Facebook Timeline & Open GraphPlatform Briefing - Die Socialisten 08/2012

(Photo: Facebook.com)

die.socialisten.atsocial network development

Intro: Facebook Open Graph / Timeline

On their annual f8-event in September 2011, Facebook introduced the biggest change to the platform since News-Feed in 2006:Timeline & Open GraphIn this briefing we want to give you an overview on these game-changing features, especially focussing on the opportunities they represent for publishers, developers and brands.

Let’s take a look at the new Timeline-profiles first...


Cover - Fill this wide, open space with a unique image that represents you best. It's the first thing people see when they visit your timeline.


Stories - Share and highlight your most memorable posts, photos and life events on your timeline. This is where you can tell your story from beginning, to middle, to now.


Timeline-stories are basically a two-column, chronological stream of all your activitiy on Facebook:

Photos, Checkins, Status-Updates, Likes, Friends...


Watch out! Apps can publish to your Timeline as well!

Instead of the good-old Wall-Posting, Timeline-apps can publish and display all sorts of actions!



The basic idea behind Timeline-/Open Graph-Apps:People already are using apps (on Facebook, on the Web, Mobile).People are doing all kinds of things on these apps (listening to songs, watching movies, publishing what books they read, recording their sports-activities etc.). Let’s call these activities ”actions”.Now, let people continue using their apps the way they are already doing it (no need to force them into new “Facebook-Canvas-Apps”).

Instead: let them publish all actions they want to their Timeline-profile, by connecting your app to the Open Graph!


Rewind: Open Graph Protocol

Released in 2010, Open Graph Protocol allowed publishers to connect their websites, blogs, apps with the Facebook Social Graph.How? By adding the Like-Button:

Open Graph Protocol connected users and objects with one type of edge - the “like”. The objects (mostly articles, videos...) are incorporated into Facebooks social graph.



With Timeline / Open Graph, Facebook allows developers to publish almost any kind of connection between users and objects.

Objects can be any piece of content (music, video, article...), but also more app-specific things - a running-route, a comment on a book, a recipe...Actions can be all kinds of verbs - read, listen to, watch, cook, recommend, collect, run, comment...

With Open Graph, users can connect with objects with all sorts of actions! Everything is represented in Facebooks social graph.


How & when are Open Graph Actions published?

In some cases, actions can be published automatically, after a user has consumed content for a while (Audio, Video, News).However, users should always be able to easily un-publish and opt-out).

In most cases, actions should be published when the user takes the particular action in your app.When a comment is posted, a rating done, a friend followed etc.



Two important caveats:1. Users have to approve each app, before it is allowed to publish to their timeline! Actions will never be published without the users explicit consent!



Two important caveats:2. All actions a developer wants to use, must be approved by Facebook first!The Approval-Process normally takes a few days max.Facebook checks on grammar, user-experience, abuse etc.




So, where are actions displayed, once they are being published?

They’re featured on the new Ticker in Realtime. They’re featured in Postings & Aggregations on Timeline-Profiles.They’re featured in Timeline-Views of the app on profiles.They’re featured in the News-Feed, when deemed more important or when several users performed similar actions (Cluster).

All your friends can see published actions, wether they have installed the app, from which actions are originating from, or not!



Next, we’ll demonstrate all kinds of exposure Open Graph-actions can get by showing our first Open Graph App, the Last.fm Scrobbler. Everytime a user listens to a song, the “Scrobble”-action is published (think Spotify).It’s approved by Facebook and you can try it out today:http://www.facebook.com/LastfmScrobbler

Other Showcase-apps you should try out to get to know Open Graph better include:Spotify http://www.spotify.com (Music)

Mein Klubhttp://apps.facebook.com/meinklub (Sports)

Washington Post Social Readerhttp://apps.facebook.com/wpsocialreader (News)

The Guardianhttp://apps.facebook.com/theguardian (News)

http://www.facebook.com/LastfmScrobbler

http://www.facebook.com/LastfmScrobbler

http://www.spotify.com












http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian

http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian


Actions are displayed on the Ticker in realtime. On Mouseover, a flyout shows more detail on the preformed action & object. The ticker is filtered by GraphRank!


Important & more frequent actions are highlighted & clustered in the News-Feed!


Frequently used apps and media-types (“Music”, “Video”, “News”) are represented in boxes on the top of a users Timeline-Profile.


Published actions are also aggregated further down the profile - f.e. monthly summaries of activity


Users can add buttons for the apps they like most on the top of their profile - these buttons load the “Timeline-View” of the app...


The “Timeline-View” of an app shows a chronological view of all actions the user has published with it.


Open Graph allows users to build their digital identity in the domain of your app and bring this identity to Facebook.

Open Graph allows deep integration for apps & content with Facebooks Social Graph. It allows your app to perfectly integrate with Facebooks social channels (News-Feed, profiles/walls, Ticker).

Open Graph is also key for offering a personalized experience to users. By using Social Plugins like Facepile & Recent Activity personalization can be quickly added to apps.

Why build for Facebook Open Graph / Timeline?


Actions published through your App receive a great amount of exposure on the platform, and therefore can drive massive traffic to your app or content-site:

Early results from US-centric Showcase-apps are very promising:Yahoo! News (+600% Referral-Traffic von Facebook)The Independent (>1mio monthly active users)The Guardian (4mio app installs)Washington Post (3.5mio app installs)Source: Facebook (https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/603/)

Why build for Facebook Open Graph / Timeline?


Facebook started the public rollout of Timeline (and also the approval of Open Graph-apps) in January 2012.At the bottom of https://www.facebook.com/about/timeline, you can check out how many of your friends are on Timeline already (for me it was about 86% in August 2012).

The rollout -Facebook Open Graph / Timeline

https://www.facebook.com/about/timeline

https://www.facebook.com/about/timeline


Eventually everybody will (have to) switch to Timeline. If you haven’t been asked to switch by Facebook yet, here is an easy guide to turn on Timeline manually:http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/22/how-to-enable-facebook-timeline/

Remember: you can start launching Open Graph / Timeline-apps just now! Users on the old profile just won’t be able to fully experience the apps yet.

The rollout -Facebook Open Graph / Timeline

http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/22/how-to-enable-facebook-timeline/

http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/22/how-to-enable-facebook-timeline/


- Apps with an very low expected user-base (<5k, better to have >10k)- Apps running for a very limited amount of time (short-live marketing campaigns)- Apps accompanying marketing campaigns without much or any user-interaction (think Tab-apps)

Instead:- Think about merging several campaigns into one with a larger userbare.- Think about how campaigns could grow into a long-lived, substantial app!

When not to build forFacebook Open Graph / Timeline?

Thanks!Michael Kamleitner

[email protected]+43 699 11607923

Technology

Facebook Timeline & Open Graph Platform Briefing 08/2012