Keep Your Users Coming Back for More

A big part of building a successful and lasting application isn't just about getting users to try it the first time, it's also vital to get them to come back again and again. To help make that easier we're launching a set of tools to enable users to bookmark applications so they can easily navigate back to them, as well as receive updates from applications in a new communication channel -- Counters. We've also added a column to the permissions FQL table so that you can easily see which of your users have bookmarked your application.

You can prompt your users to bookmark your application in the following ways:

• You can use the fb:bookmark FBML or XFBML tags, which render an Add Bookmark button on your canvas page or Facebook Connect site.
  
• You can call FB.Connect.showBookmarkDialog (for your Facebook Connect site or IFrame application) or Facebook.showBookmarkDialog (for your FBML application) inside an onclick handler only. (Only show the dialog when a user has clicked something indicating they want to bookmark an application -- don't pop it up on its own.)

Both methods pop up a dialog that prompts your users to bookmark your application or site.

If a user has already bookmarked your application, the button won't appear to the user, and if called, the dialog informs the user that the application has already been bookmarked.

We'll modify the bookmark buttons and dialog when the navigation to applications changes so that users always know where to find their bookmarks.

In addition to making it easier for users to find your application again, bookmarks will also make it easier for users to see the Counter associated with your application. Counters aren't live yet, but when they are, they will give you the ability to notify users in a lightweight way that they have impending actions in your application.

Please keep checking our Developer Roadmap to see the latest about upcoming features and changes. We welcome your feedback in our Developer Forum.

Arun, a software engineer on the Platform team, wants your users to keep coming back to your apps and Connect sites.