facebook timeline & open graph platform briefing 11/2012

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Facebook Timeline & Open GraphPlatform Briefing - Die Socialisten 11/2012

(Photo: Facebook.com)

die.socialisten.atsocial network development

About: Die Socialisten"Die Socialisten" is a Vienna-based social-software agency focussing on the design & implementation of applications and marketing-solutions on social web platforms like Facebook.

To date, we have successfully built more than onehundred brand-pages, applications and integrations of external websites.

Our clients include Red Bull, Axel Springer/Bild.de, Bertelsmann, FTD, Krone Multimedia, ATV and Hitradio Ö3. "Die Socialisten" are Austria's first agency listed in the official "Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer"-program.

http://die.socialisten.at | http://facebook.com/diesocialisten

http://die.socialisten.at




http://facebook.com/diesoci

http://facebook.com/diesoci

Intro: What is Open Graph / Timeline?


Intro: Facebook Open Graph / Timeline

On their annual f8-event in September 2011, Facebook introduced the biggest change to the platform since News-Feed in 2006:Timeline & Open GraphIn this briefing we want to give you an overview on these game-changing features, especially focussing on the opportunities they represent for publishers, brands and startups.Plus: Lessons learned after developing +1 year for theOpen Graph and launching numerous apps...



The basic idea behind Timeline-/Open Graph-Apps:People already are using apps (on Facebook, on the Web, Mobile).People are doing all kinds of things on these apps (listening to songs, watching movies, publishing what books they read, recording their sports-activities etc.). Let’s call these activities ”actions”.Now, let people continue using their apps the way they are already doing it (no need to force them into new “Facebook-Canvas-Apps”).

Instead: let them publish all actions they want to their Timeline-profile, by connecting your app to the Open Graph!


Rewind: Open Graph Protocol

Released in 2010, Open Graph Protocol allowed publishers to connect their websites, blogs, apps with the Facebook Social Graph.How? By adding the Like-Button:

Open Graph Protocol connected users and objects with one type of edge - the “like”. The objects (mostly articles, videos...) are incorporated into Facebooks social graph.



With Timeline / Open Graph, Facebook allows developers to publish almost any kind of connection between users and objects.

Objects can be any piece of content (music, video, article...), but also more app-specific things - a running-route, a comment on a book, a recipe...Actions can be all kinds of verbs - read, listen to, watch, cook, recommend, collect, run, comment...

With Open Graph, users can connect with objects with all sorts of actions! Everything is represented in Facebooks social graph.


How & when are Open Graph Actions published?

In some cases, actions can be published automatically, after a user has consumed content for a while (Audio, Video, News) = “Passive Sharing”However, users should always be able to easily un-publish and opt-out.Examples: Spotify, Social Reader-Apps...

In most cases, actions should be published when the user takes the particular action in your app = “Explicit Sharing”When a comment is posted, a rating done, a friend followed etc.



Two important caveats:1. Users have to approve each app, before it is allowed to publish to their timeline! Actions will never be published without the users explicit consent!



Two important caveats:2. All actions a developer wants to use, must be approved by Facebook first!The Approval-Process normally takes a few days max.Facebook checks on grammar, user-experience, abuse etc.




Why start building for Open Graph today? Actions published through your App receive a great amount of exposure on the platform, and therefore can drive massive traffic to your app or content-site:

Early results from US-centric Showcase-apps are very promising:Yahoo! News (+600% Referral-Traffic von Facebook)The Independent (>1mio monthly active users)The Guardian (4mio app installs)Washington Post (3.5mio app installs)Source: Facebook (https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/603/)

https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/603/

https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/603/



What type of apps can integrate with Open Graph?

- Stand-alone Web-Apps (http://yourdomain.com)- Canvas- & Tab-Apps within Facebook (http://apps.facebook.com/yourapp)- Mobile Web-Apps- Native iOS- & Android-Apps-

http://yourdomain.com

http://yourdomain.com

http://apps.facebook.com/yourapp

http://apps.facebook.com/yourapp



Not only content-sites, but apps & startups as well! Lots of showcases incl. numbers, best practises can be found at:http://developers.facebook.com/blog/archive#2012 (search f. “spotlight”)

http://developers.facebook.com/blog/archive#2012

http://developers.facebook.com/blog/archive#2012



mixcloud.com: -40% bouncerate f. Facebook-referrals, spotlight friends’ activity, easy sharing of listened music.



tumblr.com: Increased Facebook-Referral Traffic x2!



endomodo: Increased Facebook-Referral Traffic x1.75, No. of shared stories on Facebook x2.5!

Distribution: Where on Facebook are Open Graph-

actions displayed?



So, where are actions displayed, once they are being published?

They’re featured in the News-Feed, when deemed more important or when similar actions have been performed (Cluster). They’re featured on the new Ticker in Realtime. They’re featured in Stories & Aggregations on Timeline-Profiles.They’re featured in app-specific Timeline-Views on profiles.

Not all published actions will be displayed in every channel!All your friends can see published actions, wether they have installed the app, from which actions are originating from, or not!


Distribution: Where are Actions being displayed?

Newsfeed - Single Action:

Available f. all Custom Actions, but heavily filtered by GraphRank (=most OG-actions won’t be displayed in Newsfeed!)



Newsfeed - Multiple Actions:

Available f. all Custom Actions, but heavily filtered by GraphRank (=most OG-actions won’t be displayed in Newsfeed!)



Newsfeed - Aggregated:

Only f. Built-in Actions (maybe even only “listen”?) - Heavily filtered by GraphRank



Newsfeed - Aggregated:

Only f. Built-in Action “read”. Only displayed if a no. of friends have read the article!



Ticker:

Contains more actions, but isstill filtered, so f.e. not every song listened on Spotify is displayed!



Timeline - Stories:

Most actions won’t be displayed as separate story. There are some tricks though :)



Facebook will display aggregations for most frequently used apps only!

Timeline - Aggregations:



Timeline - App-Views:



App-specific Views are quite hidden, only user can set visible tiles! Still a great feature to show off all your aggregations!

Timeline - App-Views:



Dev-Tip: Users see all published actions in the “Activity Log” - contains all actions, from all apps, no matter how it was published!


The Activity Log: If its not there, it probably hasn’t been published at all!

Insights: Some real-life data!


Insights: Some real-life data

Last.fm Scrobbler f. Facebookhttp://www.facebook.com/LastfmScrobbler

http://www.facebook.com/LastfmScrobbler

http://www.facebook.com/LastfmScrobbler


Last.fm Scrobbler f. Facebook>80k MAU



Last.fm Scrobbler f. Facebook>120mio Actions published in 2012



CTR & Distribution of Impressions:



Retention:


Best Practise: How-to get the most out of Open Graph

for your app!


Best Practise: Built-in Open Graph-Actions

For content-heavy sites (news, video, music): Use the built-in actions read, watch, listen! Feel free to share these actions passively!(=in the background, with no explicit user-interaction)Give users a clear indication that they’ve published an action!Give users an easy undo-option and/or history/logto un-publish their actions!Give users an easy way to opt-out for the session or even forever!



Opt-out, Indication & Undohttp://apps.facebook.com/meinklub

http://apps.facebook.com/meinklub






Action-History/Loghttp://apps.facebook.com/meinklub






Best Practise: Custom Open Graph-Actions

Add 3+ Custom Open Graph-actions that mirror the interactions users naturally take in your app!Add rich OG meta-data your OG-objects!Connect your OG-object-model!Build rich stories for your published OG-actions!Build attractive aggregations for Timeline!

Watch out: Passive Sharing is not allowed for Custom Actions starting February 2013!



Let users enter custom messages!



Inter-connect your OG-object-model & add rich metadata!



Let users upload images & add location!



Use @-mentions to Tag friends!



How-to increase visibility of Custom Actions in Newsfeed and other channels!

- Add OG-metadata to your stories!- Let users add custom text-messages- Let users add location- Let users upload images- Let users @-mention friends- Use “fb_explicit_sharing”-Option when publishing


Die SocialistenApps Showcase 2012

Mein Klubhttp://apps.facebook.com/meinklub

Last.fm Scrobbler f. Facebookhttp://apps.facebook.com/lastfm-og-scrobbler

Krone Social TVhttp://www.facebook.com/kronetv?sk=app_135828866537171

ATV ampunkthttp://www.facebook.com/AmPunkt/app_119818284846

Uberch.at http://uberch.at/

Social Reader Widgethttp://nonsmokingarea.com/blog/http://www.thomashutter.comhttp://www.nintendo-online.de

Social Wallhttp://wall.socialisten.at/

Swat.iohttp://www.swat.io/

http://apps.facebook.com/meinklub/

http://apps.facebook.com/meinklub/

http://apps.facebook.com/lastfm-og-scrobbler

http://apps.facebook.com/lastfm-og-scrobbler

http://www.facebook.com/kronetv?sk=app_135828866537171

http://www.facebook.com/kronetv?sk=app_135828866537171

http://www.facebook.com/AmPunkt/app_119818284846




http://uberch.at

http://uberch.at

http://nonsmokingarea.com/blog/

http://nonsmokingarea.com/blog/

http://www.thomashutter.com

http://www.thomashutter.com

http://www.nintendo-online.de

http://www.nintendo-online.de

http://uberch.at

http://uberch.at

http://uberch.at

http://uberch.at


“Facebook Programmierung - Entwicklung von Social Apps & Websites” Michael Kamleitner, Galileo Computing 2012 http://book.socialisten.at

http://book.socialisten.at

http://book.socialisten.at

Michael KamleitnerDie Socialisten

m: +43 699 116 07 923e: [email protected]: http://facebook.com/michael.kamleitnerg: http://profiles.google.com/michael.kamleitnert: http://twitter.com/_subnet

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

http://facebook.com/michael.kamleitner




http://profiles.google.com/michael.kamleitner

http://profiles.google.com/michael.kamleitner

http://twitter.com/_subnet

http://twitter.com/_subnet

facebook timeline & open graph platform briefing 11/2012

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