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Graph API - Facebook Developers

nl 17y ago
This API tastes so much like the old FriendFeed APIs. Compare http://friendfeed.com/api/documentation http://friendfeed.com/api/documentation and the Facebook API's and you'd swear that it's just v3 of the FriendFeed API. (This is a good thing, btw. I guess there is now doubt that Facebook got good value out of that purchase)
- michaelfairley 17y ago
  Makes sense, considering Facebook bought FriendFeed not too long ago. This is probably the first of many benefits they got from that acquisition.
theli0nheart 17y ago
Page is currently down for me.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- grinich 17y ago
  Looks like it's back up.
- code_duck 17y ago
  Page requires login for no apparent reason. I HATE however accessing essentially anything at all on Facebook requires one to sign in first.
  - liuliu 17y ago
    The example shows in the doc use your OWN Facebook username. I guess that is why.
mikebo 17y ago
Coming next: social network aware adsense.
- NEPatriot 17y ago
  Mix in community with adsense and you get: looking for gadget XYZ? Here are the ads for it, by the way X of your FB friends bought product 1, 4X of your FB friends bought product 2. Which are you more likely to buy?
waxman 17y ago
It's about time. The FB API was a nightmare. But there's 400 million people on Facebook, so FB integration is probably good for your site, regardless of was your site does. The new Open Graph protocol actually looks pretty awesome. This could be huge.
- OmarIsmail 17y ago
  Agreed. The simplicity and elegance of the API is really great. A lot of sites have status updates + commenting + liking + feeds... and this essentially gives you a lot of that functionality for 'free'. You don't need to worry about the hard problems in regards to friend visibility, scaling the push model, etc etc. All the difficult data processing is handled on Facebook's end while a site becomes more of a lens/context/perspective on the data. Of course the cost of this is that Facebook gets your data. It's a bit of a Faustian contract (hope I'm using that reference properly). They'll save you engineering cycles and promote your content to your user's social graphs, you just have to give them your data. Sites really now have 3 options: 1) Ignore FB to their own risk 2) Embrace FB and give up control of their data 3) Use FB as a data mirroring and distribution mechanism - but still give them all your data. Choice 1 is a difficult decision to make... if FB becomes THE standard and you're not providing your users the experience they expect, maybe they'll go somewhere else. Of course this could be like Beacon where users hate it. Or it could be like Facebook Connect where it's cool and some sites leverage it really well, but hasn't change the landscape of the web THAT much. If you choose Option 3 you're still giving your data to Facebook. So now you're left with, is it worth the engineering cycles to ensure you don't get locked out of your own data. I think most people on here will say yes, but a surprising number might not. Now after thinking about it for a while, this will cause an uptick in Facebook Connect usage and integration, but I don't think it's going to fundamentally change the way sites are designed. Maybe in a year or two if Facebook continues its growth current trajectory.
  - Nervetattoo 17y ago
    I doubt I would design a site differently, but I sure as hell would make sure I connected to the "open graph". Its simply to big a win, it can't be ignored unless your a big enough player. And may i restate: The API is slick and sexy and feels damn open. The only downside here is that its a company like facebook that ends up as the biggest winner. But should you as a minor site really give a damn? I mean, its unlikely that facebook is in competition with you anyway so its not like you actually lose anything by giving them data. And isn't this really a step in the direction the entire web have been crying out for a long time? No more data duplication, "let me put my info one place and then pluck it from there". I consider todays f8 to be quite major for web developers like myself and obviously for facebook as this means they are actually heading towards their goal from some time ago; Becoming a platform.
enki 17y ago
this could turn into a generic graph API eventually, even though right now it's just an API refactor. also looks like bret taylor's been working on this - guess the friendfeed acquisition worked well for facebook.
tcdent 17y ago
The big thing to me is the addition of a search method. If I understand it all correctly (I did miss the first part of the f8 keynote) we've got the permission to pull any data out by keyword for the very first time.
joelhaus 17y ago
Is there a reason they chose not to use rdf/microformats? This is their proprietary FBML markup, I believe. Seems a little redundant, but maybe I missed something.
- nl 17y ago
  Is there a reason they chose not to use rdf/microformats? Because RDF sucks? And microformats only help in some cases This is their proprietary FBML markup, I believe It looks a lot like JSON to me. What are you looking at?
  - joelhaus 17y ago
    Is this a widely held view? I'd like to understand the logic, so a reference would be appreciated. If a suitable standard exists, you would think they'd take advantage of it (increased adoption), no? I also don't like the idea of duplicating efforts, but apparently I have missed some technical limitation. [Edit] I think I just found the part of the answer: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1283507 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1283507.
    - veemjeem 17y ago
      I think their open graph protocol is a little simpler and easier to use than rdf/microformats -- I think they were aiming for simplicity over completeness. You can represent pretty complicated structured data with rdf/microformats. Sometimes simplicity wins over completeness. See http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html
    - nl 17y ago
      Is this a widely held view? I'd like to understand the logic, so a reference would be appreciated. Are you referring to the "RDF sucks" bit? Yes, I think it is a widely held view, which often people are too scared to express. Here's a decent reference: http://norman.walsh.name/2004/07/30/rdfxml http://norman.walsh.name/2004/07/30/rdfxml (Norm Walsh is the chair of the XML Processing Model Working Group and co-chair of the XML Core Working Group, so he does have some kind of grasp of how XML is supposed to work)
cilantro 17y ago
I love the irony that you have to log in to read the docs.

nl 17y ago

This API tastes so much like the old FriendFeed APIs. Compare http://friendfeed.com/api/documentation http://friendfeed.com/api/documentation and the Facebook API's and you'd swear that it's just v3 of the FriendFeed API. (This is a good thing, btw. I guess there is now doubt that Facebook got good value out of that purchase)

michaelfairley 17y ago
Makes sense, considering Facebook bought FriendFeed not too long ago. This is probably the first of many benefits they got from that acquisition.

theli0nheart 17y ago

Page is currently down for me.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
grinich 17y ago
Looks like it's back up.
code_duck 17y ago
Page requires login for no apparent reason. I HATE however accessing essentially anything at all on Facebook requires one to sign in first.
- liuliu 17y ago
  The example shows in the doc use your OWN Facebook username. I guess that is why.

mikebo 17y ago

Coming next: social network aware adsense.

NEPatriot 17y ago
Mix in community with adsense and you get: looking for gadget XYZ? Here are the ads for it, by the way X of your FB friends bought product 1, 4X of your FB friends bought product 2. Which are you more likely to buy?

waxman 17y ago

It's about time. The FB API was a nightmare. But there's 400 million people on Facebook, so FB integration is probably good for your site, regardless of was your site does. The new Open Graph protocol actually looks pretty awesome. This could be huge.

OmarIsmail 17y ago
Agreed. The simplicity and elegance of the API is really great. A lot of sites have status updates + commenting + liking + feeds... and this essentially gives you a lot of that functionality for 'free'. You don't need to worry about the hard problems in regards to friend visibility, scaling the push model, etc etc. All the difficult data processing is handled on Facebook's end while a site becomes more of a lens/context/perspective on the data. Of course the cost of this is that Facebook gets your data. It's a bit of a Faustian contract (hope I'm using that reference properly). They'll save you engineering cycles and promote your content to your user's social graphs, you just have to give them your data. Sites really now have 3 options: 1) Ignore FB to their own risk 2) Embrace FB and give up control of their data 3) Use FB as a data mirroring and distribution mechanism - but still give them all your data. Choice 1 is a difficult decision to make... if FB becomes THE standard and you're not providing your users the experience they expect, maybe they'll go somewhere else. Of course this could be like Beacon where users hate it. Or it could be like Facebook Connect where it's cool and some sites leverage it really well, but hasn't change the landscape of the web THAT much. If you choose Option 3 you're still giving your data to Facebook. So now you're left with, is it worth the engineering cycles to ensure you don't get locked out of your own data. I think most people on here will say yes, but a surprising number might not. Now after thinking about it for a while, this will cause an uptick in Facebook Connect usage and integration, but I don't think it's going to fundamentally change the way sites are designed. Maybe in a year or two if Facebook continues its growth current trajectory.
- Nervetattoo 17y ago
  I doubt I would design a site differently, but I sure as hell would make sure I connected to the "open graph". Its simply to big a win, it can't be ignored unless your a big enough player. And may i restate: The API is slick and sexy and feels damn open. The only downside here is that its a company like facebook that ends up as the biggest winner. But should you as a minor site really give a damn? I mean, its unlikely that facebook is in competition with you anyway so its not like you actually lose anything by giving them data. And isn't this really a step in the direction the entire web have been crying out for a long time? No more data duplication, "let me put my info one place and then pluck it from there". I consider todays f8 to be quite major for web developers like myself and obviously for facebook as this means they are actually heading towards their goal from some time ago; Becoming a platform.

enki 17y ago

this could turn into a generic graph API eventually, even though right now it's just an API refactor. also looks like bret taylor's been working on this - guess the friendfeed acquisition worked well for facebook.

tcdent 17y ago

The big thing to me is the addition of a search method. If I understand it all correctly (I did miss the first part of the f8 keynote) we've got the permission to pull any data out by keyword for the very first time.

joelhaus 17y ago

Is there a reason they chose not to use rdf/microformats? This is their proprietary FBML markup, I believe. Seems a little redundant, but maybe I missed something.

nl 17y ago
Is there a reason they chose not to use rdf/microformats? Because RDF sucks? And microformats only help in some cases This is their proprietary FBML markup, I believe It looks a lot like JSON to me. What are you looking at?
- joelhaus 17y ago
  Is this a widely held view? I'd like to understand the logic, so a reference would be appreciated. If a suitable standard exists, you would think they'd take advantage of it (increased adoption), no? I also don't like the idea of duplicating efforts, but apparently I have missed some technical limitation. [Edit] I think I just found the part of the answer: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1283507 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1283507.
  - veemjeem 17y ago
    I think their open graph protocol is a little simpler and easier to use than rdf/microformats -- I think they were aiming for simplicity over completeness. You can represent pretty complicated structured data with rdf/microformats. Sometimes simplicity wins over completeness. See http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html
  - nl 17y ago
    Is this a widely held view? I'd like to understand the logic, so a reference would be appreciated. Are you referring to the "RDF sucks" bit? Yes, I think it is a widely held view, which often people are too scared to express. Here's a decent reference: http://norman.walsh.name/2004/07/30/rdfxml http://norman.walsh.name/2004/07/30/rdfxml (Norm Walsh is the chair of the XML Processing Model Working Group and co-chair of the XML Core Working Group, so he does have some kind of grasp of how XML is supposed to work)

cilantro 17y ago

I love the irony that you have to log in to read the docs.