Developer Roadmap: Keeping You Up to Date

We launched a Developer Roadmap this past October to keep you up to date on changes to Facebook Platform. As we roll these updates out, we wanted to call special attention to a few of the recent and upcoming changes that you should be aware of.

The Stream

Launched: Over the past month we made several changes to how stream stories are rendered. As of last Tuesday, we will now render the first image you pass (at a maximum of 90 pixels wide or tall), and display a "See more" link if there are more images or if the story is more than roughly 300 characters long. We're also showing one action link up to 25 characters long, and won't render formatting characters.

Coming up:

• Stream publishing methods: As we announced on October 23rd, to make it simpler and easier to develop on Facebook, we will support only the stream publishing methods (like stream.publish), and will discontinue support of many of the existing APIs. These changes take effect on December 20 (three weeks away). Everything you need to know is detailed on the roadmap.
• New policy: Also, beginning December 20, you no longer can display a Feed form to a user unless the user has explicitly expressed a desire to share that content. For example, if a user takes action within a game, you cannot display a Feed form unless the user checks a box or clicks a button that says, "Share this with my friend." Learn more about the details of this policy.

Email

We're excited to provide users with the ability to share their primary email addresses with you. Right now we're testing a number of different user interfaces to ensure high user comprehension without adding unnecessary friction, and look forward to having more to announce soon. Keep an eye on the roadmap for the latest.

Site Layout, Dashboards, and Counters

We're going to start testing navigation changes on the home page in the coming weeks. Along with that change, we'll start testing the Application and Games Dashboards and the Counter. We'll give you access to the APIs as soon as they're available as well as another heads up before rolling these out fully.

We'll share additional details on the remaining updates on the roadmap as they become available, including the profile, canvas page, and the Open Graph API.

In addition to the roadmap, we will also communicate with you via the Platform Live Status page immediately before making any change. You can subscribe to this blog's RSS feed and the Platform Live Status RSS feed, or subscribe to either or both via email; we encourage you to follow both to make sure you don't miss anything.

We hope you find this information useful. If you have feedback, please feel free to share it in the Developer Forum.

Kelly, a product marketer on the Platform team, likes to tell you all about it.