Facebook Announces Platform Roadmap

October 30, 2009
Posted by joshuamarch

Yesterday, and in the “spirit of being as open and transparent as possible”, Facebook announced several changes to its platform. Amongst them, developer access to user email addresses, a focus on communication through the stream and inbox, a simplified navigation, more prominent new dashboards and newo Open Graph and Analytics APIs.

A few things to watch out for:

• User-to-user messages will be shifted away from notifications and into the inbox. This will use a pop-up similar to the current newsfeed pop-up; this should reduce the number of notifications being sent from apps, decreasing spam. The upside is that messages that are sent are far more likely to be seen and engaged with by users.
• A new dashboard has been launched to make it easier for users to find and keep track of games they’ve been playing - great if your campaign has game elements
• It’s becoming much easier to collect a user’s email address (with their explicit permission) - shifting app-to-user notifications to email instead. This will make them far more engaging and likely to be seen, but will force apps to avoid being spammy to be seen among the sometimes huge amounts of notifications a user receives.
• There is now a live status page for the platform to allow developers to keep track of issues and bugs as well as the general state of the platform in real time.

“These updates are designed to simplify communication for users and developers, improve app discovery and engagement, and provide you with more comprehensive tools for building or expanding your business with Facebook”, wrote Facebook product head Ethan Beard.

Along the announcement, Facebook published a roadmap to help developers “anticipate future changes and opportunities”.  In it, Facebook informs the progress of the planned changes and what they mean for the developers “over the next two quarters”.

Although the Roadmap can be modified, it is useful to know what Facebook is planning. If you have any current applications, it’s important you understand these changes and how they could affect you, and if you’re planning future campaigns they will help you understand what areas to focus on. Get in touch if you need help understanding any of these changes.