Facebook Developers

We're excited to announce our official support for the Microsoft SDK for Facebook Platform, which Microsoft released today.

This SDK contains rich social features and offers something for almost any kind of Facebook developer who is building with Microsoft technology, whether you're implementing Facebook Connect or are building a Web-based or desktop application. If you're one of the six million Microsoft software developers just starting to build for Facebook, you can use this SDK to make your applications more social, letting your users share and connect with their friends.

If you're building on the Web, you can use the ASP.NET library to easily build Facebook Connect sites or canvas applications using APIs and a rich set of ready-made Facebook controls. On the desktop, you can easily integrate Facebook Connect into your Silverlight, WPF, or Windows Forms applications.

The Microsoft SDK for Facebook Platform joins the ranks of our other supported libraries, alongside PHP, JavaScript, iPhone, Adobe ActionScript 3.0, and Force.com. You can check out the libraries with which you can build on Facebook -- both officially supported and community supported -- in the Client Libraries article on the Developer Wiki.

Releasing this SDK is Microsoft's latest move in helping make the Web more social. When we held our Facebook Technology Tasting event this past April, Microsoft was there to showcase applications built on Silverlight and .NET that utilize the latest features of Facebook Platform, such as the Open Stream API.

Start building today at www.microsoft.com/facebooksdk.

Wei, a software engineer on Facebook Platform, is working on making the Web more open and social.

As part of an ongoing effort we've had underway to address the quality of third-party ads running inside applications, we wanted to offer some clarifications, reminders, and information on our actions.

First, deceptive ads are a widespread issue on the Web and one we fight aggressively. This battle is not new and it’s far from over. We faced stimulus scam ads on our own system earlier this year and pushed them off the site with rigorous enforcement. We did the same months later when deceptive ads from third-party ad networks appeared in applications. We’re doing that again now as we see them appear in the form of offers.

Since introducing updated policies for third-party ads on Facebook Platform in July, we have disabled two entire ad networks and suspended or brought into compliance over 100 applications for ad-related violations in regions around the world, over half of which had more than one million monthly active users.

We recognize that monitoring ads isn't the first area of focus for an entrepreneur just getting started with social applications. That's why ad networks that don’t play by the rules should expect to be our first point of contact in our line of enforcement. Our policies are clear. If you're an ad network and don’t comply with them, you are doing a disservice to your customers, and you should expect your business opportunities on Facebook to cease.

In addition to legal notices that have been sent to many ad networks to mandate ongoing compliance on Facebook Platform, today we are disabling two additional offer and ad networks who have repeatedly violated our policies.

We have explicit policies on offers and inappropriate ad content. Our actions should illustrate that the issue is bigger than one ad format, and that there’s a lot of room to do more. It should be clear what matters are the ongoing actions taken when things are quiet by platforms, ad networks and developers, and not brief reactions when the market's paying attention.

In addition to steps we’ve taken to build teams and technologies devoted to this issue and continual outreach to work with members of the ecosystem on ways to improve their practices, it is the responsibility of both developers and ad networks to make sure the content running in third-party applications is appropriate.

The opportunities for high quality ads are significant, and several players are genuinely focused on sustainability and creating a user experience that builds long-term trust. There’s a reason more than 70% of our 300 million active users engage with applications each month. We expect that our joint efforts with you, our developers, will align incentives in a way that allows businesses to thrive through a consistent and aggressive focus on the user experience.

Separate from our ad policies, we encourage everyone in the community to read the simplified principles and policies we announced last week for Facebook Platform. The underlying issues here are bigger than ads. They’re about building an experience that users will want to come back to… no spam, no surprises.

If you have an advertising-related inquiry, please use the Platform Advertising Contact Form.

Nick is a member of the Platform team.

Many of you currently use the Facebook JavaScript client library to integrate social features into your website or application. This library helps you access a user's identity (like name, profile photo), connections (friends, pages), and social activity (live feed, communication channels) to add value to your service. Today, we are launching a new alpha version of the JavaScript library that is at least 3 times faster, 10 times more lightweight, and easier to use. It's a work in progress and we would like to hear your feedback and collaborate on its development.

In addition, we're open sourcing the new Facebook Connect JavaScript SDK on GitHub, along with a readme, documentation, and a FAQ to give you the ability to collaborate and build with us.

Looking Ahead

As we announced last week, we're giving you more visibility into our roadmap. Over the next few months, we plan to revamp and release the new JavaScript SDK in phases with the following functionality:

1. Core: Authentication, authorization, Facebook Platform/Connect API calls, and publishing to the Feed.
2. XFBML/Widgets: Dynamic loading and events, new social widgets.
3. Data: Data access abstractions.

Today's alpha release includes the Core module. This is an early release, and we will continue to develop features for the SDK over the next few months.

Why Open Source?

At Facebook, we believe in releasing and contributing to open source projects as a way to increase innovation across the Web. That's why you'll find us developing the new JavaScript SDK from the alpha stage release publicly. We are working hard to ensure your experience with Facebook Connect is fast and stable. In order to keep us nimble and allow us to bring you new functionality, without compromising stability, we have ensured full test coverage of the new JavaScript SDK. We are including this in the open source repository to assure you of our commitment to quality, but also with the hopes that you will contribute back as we develop in the future.

Naitik, a software engineer on the Platform team, is making your connections better, stronger, and faster.