Facebook Developers

We think one of the best things about Facebook Platform is that it inspires an ecosystem of developers to build creative and timely applications that provide users with social experiences around the things that matter to them most. Likewise, by interacting with friends through meaningful applications, users help contribute to the success of countless developers who are building businesses in this ecosystem.

As we all tune in to watch the World Series, it is an especially exciting time for the developers of baseball applications – particularly those focused on the Tampa Bay Rays and Philadelphia Phillies! With sports fans using these engaging and interactive applications, some of the most heated baseball competitions are happening off the field and on Facebook Platform this season.

Through the entire season and post-season, fans have been going head-to-head talking smack, expressing pride for teams on their profiles, and recruiting friends. Thousands of users are connecting with friends and fans from all corners of the country, posting team badges and photos to their profiles, staying updated on news, playing trivia, and discussing games, all with applications built on Facebook Platform.

Hundreds of sports applications have been built on Facebook Platform, including some of the most popular baseball apps from Watercooler, Citizen Sports and Fantasy Moguls – all of which are seeing growth by drawing in World Series fanatics.

Just this week, since the start of the World Series games, Watercooler’s Philadelphia Phillies application has increased its membership by 20%, boasting more than 62,000 users. Its Tampa Bay Rays application has also seen an increase in numbers, with a 40% jump to more than 11,000 users. Since the start of the playoffs, engagement with Watercooler’s Phillies app is up 175%, while its Rays app is up 150%. Through their FanSection, Watercooler also features a “Biggest Fan Photo” contest that has already received over 2,350 entries so far!

Users are also connecting on Citizen Sports’ Phillies Phanatics and Rays Republic applications, where they can cheer for their team, share baseball news from around the Web, and chat with like-minded fans. The apps saw a 300% increase in visitors and engagement during the first three weeks of October, leading up to the World Series. Citizen Sports’ Phillies Phanatics application currently boasts over 15,000 monthly active users, while the Rays Republic app has over 1,200.

Nearly 153,000 monthly active users are engaging with leading applications to get involved in the World Series this year, with Phillies fans having the strongest presence on Facebook. No matter which team you’re rooting for, be sure to join them if you haven’t already!

And with Football season kicking off, don’t forget to check out Watercooler’s team apps, or Citizen Sports’ Fantasy Football app – with over 97,000 monthly active users. Playoffs are just around the corner, so if you have a great idea for a football-themed application, now’s the time to get it up and running!

Since we launched the new profile, we've been looking closely at how we can continue to improve Feed and Feed stories, in order to encourage more actions for your applications and your users. Today we're launching a new feature to add greater engagement to your Feed stories: action links.

An action link is a call to action for the user to take within your application, directly from a Feed story. For example, it could be a call to buy an album or a book, or write a review. The URL encoded within the action link takes the user to the appropriate place to perform the action.

Action links appear next to the "Comment" link you see on Feed stories today. For technical details and more information, see the Facebook Developer Wiki.

As always, keep sending us your feedback in the Developer Forum.

The results are in and the waiting is over! We are thrilled to announce our top 25 recipients from round one of the fbFund Developer Competition. After poring through and carefully evaluating over 600 applications, we decided that these 25 teams have tremendous talent and great potential. The mission of fbFund is to identify talent and seed innovation on Facebook Platform. These diverse start-ups range from e-commerce, religion and productivity to gaming, professional development, weddings and events, wine, sports and travel. Founders include former CEOs and seasoned entrepreneurs, as well as artists, students, two NASA engineers, a kiteboarder who develops in Python, a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature, and a driver for the World Solar Challenge.

So, without further delay, here are the 25 recipients that will advance to Round Two (in alphabetical order):

• BarTab - Send a drink to a friend, with Facebook! BarTab allows users to send real drinks to each other for only $1. Drinks are redeemed through the user’s cell phone at partnered bars and restaurants.
• Black Drumm -Black Drumm develops applications that helps users organize events with friends. Whether it is going to a local concert, or planning a trek on Kilimanjaro, the application seamlessly coordinates offline activities; no more chains of emails to sort through, or spreadsheets to maintain.
• Bottle Rocket - Bottle Rocket helps users pick the perfect bottle of wine. Users can compare wines with friends on Facebook or on the Bottle Rocket iPhone application. Bottle Rocket then analyzes the wines users have liked with ratings from their friends to make informed recommendations.
• Check My Campus - Check My Campus makes the college search process easier, better and more fun. The application allows current college students to share photos and videos about life on their campuses, giving high schoolers an inside look at what real life is like at these different schools.
• Daikon - Daikon enables users to build powerful applications on the Facebook platform without writing a single line of code. Daikon produces applications that focus on increasing the enjoyment and productivity of the Facebook experience.
• Faithfeed - FaithFeed is an application where users can share about their journey of faith with friends. Through the application, users can share praises, prayer requests, resolutions and the details of what God is teaching them. Users can also keep each other accountable and support each other throughout the week.
• Good Call Sports LLC - Good Call Football is an app developed by Good Call Sports that allows users to predict each offensive play during a televised football game, in real time, and compete nationwide based on the accuracy of their predictions.
• GroupCard - GroupCard lets users rally their friends to sign the same printable online card to celebrate any occassion. Each friend can add a message, upload photos or audio, and even make a gift contribution. GroupCard started at Stanford, and is already used by thousands of groups worldwide.
• HitGrab - MouseHunt, a HitGrab creation, is a game of epic proportions. Players are hunters, hired by the king to trap mice that infest his kingdom. For each mouse caught, users will find a reward, bringing them closer to being the best MouseHunter in the land.
• Infrablue Technology - Twenty20 Cricket, a Infrablue Technology app, was developed for cricket fanatics around the world to connect and share their passion via an exciting online cricket manager game. Users compete to be the best team by training their players, and then challenging their friends and other team managers!
• Kontagent - Kontagent is the leading viral analytics platform for social network application developers. Kontagent analytics provides deep social data visualization and analysis that delivers actionable insights delivered via a hosted, on-demand service.
• Koofers - Koofers helps students create and share information that helps with classes. Users can share old tests, quizzes, and study guides; view current and past grade breakdown and average GPA for every class and professor; review professors and read ratings before signing up for new classes, and get help from other students in the same class.
• Newsbrane - Newsbrane recommends news stories and other online content to users based on their interests. Vote items up and down and Newsbrane learns the stories a user wants to see.
• Party Buzz - Party Buzz is your source of information for what’s happening offline amongst your friends. Check out your friend’s events, discuss weekend plans, and find the best parties. Bonus feature: for each event check the median age, guy-to-girl ratio, number of singles, and more!
• Pongr - Pongr is a mobile price comparison service that lets you check prices online and at nearby stores. While shopping, users can share items with their Facebook friends. Pongr mobile apps, texting, and image recognition makes bargain shopping fun!
• ProfessionalProfile - Professional Profile leverages a user's existing social connections into a professional network.
• RealGifts - RealGifts is a social gifting application that allows users to send their friends real, tangible gifts in the mail, without needing to know their friends' delivery address. Combining "virtual gifting" and eCommerce, RealGifts is the most convenient way to send real gifts to your friends.
• Socialfly - Be twice the friend in half the time! Socialfly lets users write their own notes about people, set reminders to talk to friends, and plan fun activities together. Socialfly will soon be available on both Facebook and the iPhone.
• Teach the People - Teach the People is an open educational platform. Teachers get the tools to share their expertise, allowing their knowledge to go viral, attract an audience, and be monetized effectively. Students get access to high quality, low cost education in Facebook's social environment.
• Thankster - Thankster helps you appreciate the people in your life. From Facebook, your cellphone, or anywhere you're connected, you can send the people around you digital awards that recognize them for the nice things they do in everyday life.
• The Game Creators - The Game Creators built Social Arcade, an application which users get creative and design their own game from shoot-'em-ups to platformers to racing games and more. Users can give friends the gift of a game and even personalize it.
• TrailBehind - TrailBehind helps users find great places to hike. Avid hikers can explore maps, plan trips, log their travels, and work together to build better maps of the outdoors.
• vDream Racing - vDream would be Henry Ford's favorite application on Facebook. vDream offers users access to real cars, real parts, real performance specs, and the ability to connect and compete with other car enthusiasts.
• WedSnap - WedSnap created Weddingbook, a social network on Facebook for those preparing for a wedding. Brides and grooms meet on Weddingbook to get advice, support, and inspiration during their engagement and wedding planning process.
• Wildfire - Wildfire enables consumers to discover, share and engage with interactive promotions like contests, sweepstakes and give-aways and enables companies to easily create their own attractive, branded promotions that are automatically integrated with Facebook's social features.

For more information, please visit the fbFund page on the Facebook Developer site. We are awarding each of these companies $25,000 in funding and will mentor them to help them build sustainable businesses on Facebook or around the Web using Facebook Connect.

What’s next

From now through the beginning of November, each recipient will develop and submit their final applications and create a video showcasing their work, which you can watch on the fbFund Page. Around mid-November, we'll start soliciting our users to help us select the five finalists. Users will have the chance to try these applications, watch the videos and vote for their favorites. Final judging of round two will factor in user voting, as well as input from Facebook, Accel Partners and Founders Fund. Once round two closes in December, we will announce our five finalists, each of which will receive up to an additional $225,000 in funding.

Congratulations to our 25 recipients, and let the next round begin!

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fbFund: Defining Social

fbFund is a $10M seed fund created by Facebook, Accel Partners, and Founders Fund to help enable talented developers and entrepreneurs to build sustainable businesses on Facebook Platform.

During round one, we solicited over 600 submissions that involved elevator pitches, application prototypes, business plans, and team resumes. We leave you with a few:

• GroupCard
• Socialfly
• RealGifts
• Social Arcade

If you're interested in learning more about the process or discussing further, please visit and fan the fbFund Page.