Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Facebook tries new tactics to get users to rate apps
- Facebook career postings: legal, mobile, data centers and more
- Facebook hires: engineering, data center, legal, more
- Facebook platform update: real-time insights, Offers API
- Facebook lowers barriers for developers, users to switch to Open Graph apps
| Facebook tries new tactics to get users to rate apps Posted: 26 Apr 2012 04:42 PM PDT In a continued effort to get users to provide star ratings for apps they've recently connected to, Facebook has implemented a new “rate apps” sidebar module and redesigned similar module that appears on canvas pages.
Several months after eliminating app reviews and ratings, Facebook began displaying star ratings once again in late March. An app's average star rating appears within discovery modules on the right-hand side of pages and in the card that appears when users hover over the name of an app from within News Feed. Some users are even seeing a "featured apps" section of the games discovery page that includes ratings. There does not seem to be a way for users to choose which apps to rate. With the old "Reviews" feature, users could visit a tab on any app profile page to give the app a star rating and leave a review. Because these were easily manipulated, users are now prompted to rate apps randomly. For example, they might see a "rate apps" module while visiting a fan page of something completely unrelated to the apps Facebook asks them to rate. Other times, when users visit a canvas app, such as Washington Post Social Reader, they will be prompted to rate another recently used app. In the past week or so, Facebook has updated the design of this module to display larger stars and eliminate the question “How would you rate [app X]?” See the difference below.
While this random sample approach might lead to more representative scores, it's debatable how useful stars are in letting users know whether they'll actually enjoy an app. Facebook's strength is in social data and recommendations. Anonymous star ratings might make users subconsciously more likely to click over to a new title, but they would likely benefit much more from social context such as, "Users who like [this page] also use [this app]" or "You and a friend both play [game X]. Your friend also plays [game Y]." Ratings could inform Facebook's algorithms behind the scenes and give the company some additional data about the type of apps users like, which might be slightly different than what they use. For example, a person might regularly use the Hulu app to watch the latest TV shows but still think the app needs a lot of improvement. However, developers do not have access to more information about their ratings, so they can't necessarily act on that user feedback. |
| Facebook career postings: legal, mobile, data centers and more Posted: 26 Apr 2012 01:45 PM PDT
On LinkedIn, Facebook posted positions for various legal positions, as well as other account staff. Posts added this week on Facebook's Careers Page:
Jobs posted by Facebook on LinkedIn:
Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry. |
| Facebook hires: engineering, data center, legal, more Posted: 26 Apr 2012 01:25 PM PDT
Facebook's Careers page showed that several engineering, marketing, recruiting and other positions were removed this week. Facebook’s LinkedIn feed noted that several engineering hires and a data center architect were brought on. New hires per LinkedIn and other sources:
Prior listings now removed from the Facebook Careers Page:
Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry. |
| Facebook platform update: real-time insights, Offers API Posted: 26 Apr 2012 11:53 AM PDT
Real-time insights — A number of page post metrics will now be available in “real-time.” Previously, page owners could see likes, comments and shares as they happened, but other insights, such as impressions and negative feedback, were only available two days after a post was published. Now the following insights will be refreshed every 15 minutes:
Offers API — Facebook has added support for creating and managing offers through the API. The feature is still in beta for a limited number of pages in the U.S., New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, Japan, and Turkey. However, Facebook says offers will roll out widely in “coming weeks.” Breaking changes — The offline_access permission is being deprecated and will be removed July 5. For now, developers have the option to turn this change on or off, but on May 2, Facebook will automatically enable the migration for all apps. Facebook will remove the group_type and group_subtype columns from the group FQL table on May 2. Developers will also no longer have the ability to claim domains with a page ID as of May 2. Facebook recommends claiming domains with an app ID or user ID instead. Existing domains that have been claimed will continue to work and owners will be able to view insights or run Sponsored Stories for that domain. |
| Facebook lowers barriers for developers, users to switch to Open Graph apps Posted: 26 Apr 2012 08:31 AM PDT A new Facebook change will make it easier for developers to migrate their existing apps to Open Graph without requesting additional permissions from users.
When Open Graph launched in September 2011, Facebook introduced a new publish_actions permission that allowed apps to publish stories on a user's behalf. Previously, apps requested publish_stream permissions, which would work for posting items to a user's Wall, but didn't create the Timeline activity boxes now associated with Open Graph apps. As a result, developers migrating to the new format had to ask for what was essentially the same permission twice. Now Facebook will combine these permissions so that apps only have to ask users once to publish on their behalf. The publish_actions permission will now include basic publish_stream permissions, including posting on a user’s timeline, posting photos/videos, commenting on and liking content. This permission will appear on the first auth dialog screen. Apps that need advanced capabilities, like posting to a friend’s timeline or to groups will still need to request publish_stream, which appears on a second screen where users can opt out.
Earlier this month we learned Facebook was working with a small set of partners — including Instagram before the company was acquired — to test extending the old publish_stream permission to include the new Open Graph publish_actions permission. Facebook told us then, as it iterated today "This setting does not change the controls users have or what apps can publish, and it will continue to be the app’s responsibility to make it clear to the user what content will be shared back to Facebook.” In the case of Instagram, automatically enabling Timeline permissions made sense because it simply optimized the format of posts and users still have a clear choice whether or not to share a photo on Facebook when they create an image in the Instagram app. The only action Instagram publishes is "took a photo," and as a result, few users will even notice a difference in how the app interacts with their Facebook account. It would be against Facebook policy for Instagram to automatically begin publishing stories about when users follow another account, write comments or take other actions within the mobile app that people haven't explicitly chosen to share with Facebook friends. Developers should make it as clear as possible which actions in their apps post to users’ Timelines and to their friends’ News Feeds. If users begin to mark an app's stories as spam, Facebook is likely to revoke publishing permissions or shut down an app completely. More information is available from the publishing permissions and platform policies sections of the developer site. |
Facebook added mobile and data center jobs, among others to its 
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