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Inside Facebook

Facebook Announces Hacker Cup Engineering Competition

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 08:38 PM PST

Facebook has announced it will hold its first annual multi-round programming competition called Hacker Cup. Entrants will have their answers to “algorithmic-based problem statements” scored on accuracy and speed. 25 finalists will be flown to Facebook headquarters to compete for a $5,000 grand prize and the Hacker Cup trophy. Facebook has been using its Hackathons to engage the development community, promote its status as a technology company, and recruit top talent.

The Hacker Cup’s cash prizes are relatively small compared to the $2 billion in revenue some speculate Facebook will bring in during 2010. However, winners could receive something of greater value — a job or internship at Facebook. The Sharabash brothers who won Facebook’s Camp Hackathon for university students were offered a summer internship for their ambitious augmented reality drawing application. Even if Facebook doesn’t offer any unofficial prizes, the notoriety gained could position finalists for recruitment by other technology companies.

Unlike previous competitions which have been subjectively judged by Facebook executives including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the Hacker Cup will be a more objective competition based on skill instead of presentation.

Here are the details of the Hacker Cup rounds:

Qualification Round

Time Limit: 72 hours

Date: 4pm PST, January 7, 2011 to January 10

To Advance: Solve at least one of the three problems.

Online Round 1

Time Limit: 3 sub-rounds of 3 hours each

Date: Different times from 7am PST, January 15 to 4pm PST, January 15

To Advance: Score amongst the top 1,000 competitors in any of the three sub-rounds.

Online Round 2

Time Limit: 3 hours

Date: 7am PST, January 22 to 10am PST, January 22

To Advance: Score amongst the top 25 competitors to be flown to Facebook headquarters and receive accommodations in Palo Alto, CA for the finals. Those scoring amongst the top 300 competitors will receive an official Hacker Cup t-shirt.

Finals

Date: March 11

First Place: $5,000, the title of world champion, and the winner’s name on the Hacker Cup trophy

Second Place: $2,000

Third Place: $1,000

Fourth through Twenty-Fifth Place: $100

Facebook Shows Application Requests in the Notification Channel in Potentially Significant Test

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 05:56 PM PST

Facebook is conducting a short term test showing application requests in the notifications channel. It will analyze the effects of the change before concluding whether to further roll out application request notifications.

By showing these requests in a persistently visible, frequently checked channel alongside notifications about system actions such as a user being mentioned in a post or tagged in a photo, Facebook may be able to assist developers with app discovery and user retention.

Applications could previously send messages directly to users as notifications, but lost access to the notifications channel in February. Facebook made major changes to the Platform in September, removing stories about in-game content from the feeds of non-gamers, leaving only app discovery stories about friends starting to use an app. Facebook also moved app invites and requests from the Requests panel to the Application and Game Dashboards. Many developers complained that these changes significantly hurt discovery and retention, leading Facebook to bring app invites and requests back to the Requests panel.

Facebook has sought to improve relations with developers of all sizes through improved outreach, documentation, and reliability as part of “Operation Developer Love.” But its access to communication and viral channels which are the biggest concern for most developers. Removing these channels makes it especially difficult for smaller developers to compete with larger ones which can pay for massive advertising campaigns and cross-promote to kickstart new apps.

The introduction of application requests and invites to the notifications channel could be some of the change developers have been waiting for. Facebook improved the visibility of this channel earlier this year by showing alerts of notifications on browser tabs opened to Facebook. The red counters on the notifications icon are difficult to ignore, so these notifications could lead users to more frequently visit the dashboards where they can respond to requests and invites.

Facebook must try to assist developers without detracting from the user experience. Some might be frustrated about notifications which distract them from their browsing but don’t link to more intimate social activity such as a friend Liking their status update or writing on their wall. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said “one of the biggest drivers of negative experiences has been games", and these notifications could remind users of the days when their home page and news feed were flooded by app spam. However, these notifications can only be generated by explicit actions of a user’s friends, which could set the right balance between annoyance and obscurity for applications.

Facebook Platform Dialogs Now Auto-Optimize For a User’s Device

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 12:08 PM PST

Facebook has released a new version of its Platform Dialogs — interfaces which allow users to take actions through Facebook apps, websites, and mobile apps without giving special permissions. The updated versions automatically render in a format optimized for whatever device a user is on. The update ensures dialogs always look right without application developers having to deduce the appropriate display parameter to include.

The update currently only supports the Feed Dialog for publishing stories, Friend Dialog for adding friends, and the OAuth Dialog for authorizing users, but other dialogs will be updated in the future.

The new dialogs will make it easier for developers to create mobile apps that display well on the touch screens on newer devices as well as WAP browsers of older phones. It will aid international growth of mobile apps, as users from the developing world predominantly access Facebook through WAP browsers.

Facebook has been improving its mobile platform in other ways as well. Last month it introduced new location APIs, and single sign on, which allows Facebook-integrated mobile apps to borrow the authentication token from a device’s native Facebook app, relieving users from having to enter their Facebook credentials for each app they use.

New Platform Dialog Implementation

To invoke the dialog, applications send an HTTP request or use the JavaScript, iOS, or Android SDK.

For example, a dialog invoked through the JavaScript SDK would look as a follows:


<html>
<body>
<script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js"></script>
<div id="fb-root"></div>
<script>
// assume we are already logged in
FB.init({appId: '123050457758183', xfbml: true, cookie: true});

FB.ui({
method: 'feed',
name: 'Facebook Dialogs',
link: 'http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/dialogs/',
picture: 'http://fbrell.com/f8.jpg'
});
</script>
</body>
</html>

This would load the URL below as an frame:


http://www.facebook.com/dialog/feed?
app_id=123050457758183&
name=Facebook%20Dialogs&
link=http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/dialogs/&
picture=http://fbrell.com/f8.jpg&
redirect_uri=http://www.example.com/response/

A user on the iPhone mobile browser would see the following dialog for posting to their wall through the app:

As Facebook Expands Offices, A Look at Its Latest Job Listings

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 09:17 AM PST

Facebook announced its intention to grow its staff in its Dublin, Ireland office by about 100, and open a new location in Washington, D.C., part of its ongoing worldwide expansion.

Here’s our weekly look at changes on the Facebook Careers Page, including more details on who Facebook is looking for in the new offices.

In Ireland, Facebook is set to expand its staff by 85 in the next year, adding to its current staff of about 200, according to The Guardian. The Dublin office serves as the Europe, the Middle East and Africa headquarters for Facebook and focuses primarily on advertising, sales in all types of languages, account management, finance and human resources while less than 20 work on engineering and platform operations.

These priorities are already reflected in Facebook's Career Page postings where the following Dublin positions were posted: Partner Engineer (Mobile) – Dublin, Account Manager – Swedish (Dublin), Analyst, Online Sales Operations – Dutch (Dublin), Analyst, Online Sales Operations – Swedish (Dublin), Account Manager – Dutch (Dublin), Law Enforcement Response Analyst, French (Dublin) – Contract, Law Enforcement Response Analyst, Spanish (Dublin) – Contract, Physical Security Manager (Dublin), Customer Marketing Associate – EMEA (Dublin), Customer Marketing Manager – EMEA (Dublin) and Marketing Communications Manager – EMEA (Dublin).

As far as Facebook's plans in Washington, D.C., The Washington Post reported that the company signed a lease in late November for offices on F Street, downtown. The new space is 8,600 square feet, enough for about 30 or 40 people, according to the Post; in the article, Facebook said that it planned to grow long-term and make the physical move in April.

This announcement made for some interesting timing, considering that two D.C.-based positions were no longer listed on the Careers Page: Associate Manager, Policy Communications and Manager, Public Policy. As the company has gotten more attention from Congress over privacy issues, it has been building its local presence to get its message across.

Other positions that are no longer listed include several Dublin-based security positions, the Lead Recruiter position in Singapore, a Marketing Campaign Manager, several Strategic Partner Development positions, a Network Engineer – Voice, the Benelux Head of Sales position, and Business Development Manager – Mobile.

A bunch of new sales positions were also posted this week to work across Europe, from Hamburg to Milan to Paris to Sweden, but also Singapore. Partner Engineering positions, as well as about a dozen U.S.-based Strategist – Market Solutions positions were also listed.

Two positions also of note that Facebook added to its Page this week were Litigation Counsel and Senior Commercial Transactions Counsel.

For more jobs in the industry, be sure to check out our Inside Network Job Board.

fredag den 10. december 2010 at 07.14