Leveraging the Social Graph: Inside Facebook
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Why Facebook was so interesting in 2007?
Well apart from the stake that Microsoft bought, Facebook had a free platform that allowed developers to create applications and basically distribute it through Facebook “virally”. This leveraged a lot of share of mind for consumers – socially.
Surojit Niyogi from Appizer lent some insights at Proto.in
Facebook I think is growing so quickly because of social interactions. Applications play a role here because the platform is free and it allows developers to create culturally relevant applications. This has a mutual benefit for Facebook as well as the developer.
To develop Facebook applications, one needs to be fluent with Java and Php. Of course it supports XML, Python etc. as well.
Applications on Facebook have been so successful because they:
- Have individual Canvas Pages
- They are integrated into News Feeds – this tempts users to add the application
- Mini Feeds on User Profile pages as well.
- Notification Requests – when consumers use applications for interaction, they can customize notification requests and messages which appears on a users’ home page.
- Profile Box - This is extremely viral
What is the “social Graph”?
Its basically a graph that contains points and lines. The points are users and lines are connections and activities. So Facebook essentially keeps behavioural and social data that examines interactions and relationships between users.
So advertisers can tap into this with API’s by:
- Publishing news feed stories related to user activates
- Sending notifications to friends
- Displaying data in the application profile box for friends to see and “act on”
- Using API’s to capitalize on friend data – consider the friend collage. Thus make applications truly “social”
Social applications are being used by:
- Brands, TV shows, musicians, web media,
- Useful applications are also being created such as iLike – a platform which allows user to share what they are listening to or iFamily which builds a family link and develops Family Trees. There is a similar application called FamilyLink called ‘We’re related’.
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