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Tag: f8

  • Facebook Cancels F8 Developer Conference Over Coronavirus

    Facebook Cancels F8 Developer Conference Over Coronavirus

    Facebook is the latest organization to cancel a major conference as a result of the coronavirus, cancelling this year’s F8.

    As COVID-19 continues to spread, its impact is being felt across industries. Companies, such as Apple and Microsoft, have issued warnings they will miss quarterly guidance as a result of the virus. Numerous companies pulled out of RSA Conference 2020, and MWC Barcelona was canceled over concerns. Now, Facebook joins the list of companies whose business and plans are being impacted.

    “This was a tough call to make — F8 is an incredibly important event for Facebook and it’s one of our favorite ways to celebrate all of you from around the world — but we need to prioritize the health and safety of our developer partners, employees and everyone who helps put F8 on,” writes Konstantinos Papamiltiadis in a Facebook News for Developers post. “We explored other ways to keep the in-person part of F8, but it’s important to us to host an inclusive event and it didn’t feel right to have F8 without our international developers in attendance.

    “We remain committed to the city of San Jose, where we’ve hosted F8, and its community. Every year, we donate a portion of F8 ticket sales to an organization working to diversify the tech industry. This year, we’re doubling that donation amount to $500,000 and will prioritize organizations serving local San Jose residents. We also typically host local students onsite at F8. Working with the next generation of developers is one of the highlights of what we do — and this year, we will still provide an F8-inspired experience for those students in lieu of hosting them at the event itself.”

  • WPN Today: Facebook Adds Analytics Tools to Increase Conversions for Business

    WPN Today: Facebook Adds Analytics Tools to Increase Conversions for Business

    Facebook has launched new tools in their analytics suite to help businesses using their platform to better convert visitors into customers or subscribers. At F8, Facebook’s developer conference, the company announced Journeys from Facebook Analytics that anonymously aggregates data from visitors to inform businesses on patterns that lead (or don’t lead) to sales and conversions.

    “For example, you may find the people most likely to convert first browse your website on mobile before ultimately making a purchase on desktop,” Facebook noted. “Or maybe, the people who interact with your business on Messenger ultimately spend more in your mobile app. You can then use these insights to optimize your marketing strategy and grow your business.”

    To make it work a business would simply add custom parameters to their events in Facebook Analytics enabling them to automatically receive key user insights. One of the ways to do this is via funnel conversion insights, which will provide key data on where in the process visitors tend to convert or go away.

    VR Now Available for Brands Using Facebook Messenger

    Since Facebook’s opened the Messenger Platform in 2016 to businesses and developers it has become a critical customer interaction tool for many brands. Facebook noted at F8 that there are over 8 billion messages exchanged between people and businesses each month on the platform. That is 4x more than last year and signifies widespread adoption of Messenger by businesses of all sizes including some of the largest brands.

    At F8 Facebook announced that the Messenger Platform now includes the ability for brands to integrate custom uses of augmented reality into their Messenger experience. “With this launch, businesses large and small can leverage the Camera Effects Platform to easily integrate AR into their Messenger experience, bringing the virtual and physical worlds one step closer together,” says David Marcus, VP of Messaging Products at Facebook. “So, when a person interacts with your business in Messenger, you can prompt them to open the camera, which will be pre-populated with filters and AR effects that are specific to your brand. From there, people can share the image or video to their story or in a group or one-to conversation or they can simply save it to their camera roll.”

    The value for marketers is that they can incorporate better visualizations of their products. This is especially important to brands that have products that customers feel more comfortable buying after touching, seeing up close or trying on, such as apparel. Facebook announced that ASUS, Kia, Nike, and Sephora will be including AR effects in their Messenger experience soon.

    If you are interested in using these new AR effecting in Messenger you can sign up for their waitlist.

    Facebook Enters the Dating Business

    Also at F8, Mark Zuckerberg announced “Dating,” a new service by Facebook. It will let users create a second profile that is specifically for the purpose of introductions to others that they might want to date or hook up with. The key here is that your friends on Facebook won’t be able to see your other profile and they also will not show up as potential matches. This will hopefully eliminate the awkward situation where somebody uses their Facebook friendship as a vehicle to hitting on another person, which in the past often led to unfriending.

    Facebook’s dating algorithm will use various signals to determine potential matches including if two people are attending the same Event or are a member of the same Group. You can assume that your bio info, likes and geography will play leading roles in making potential romantic matchups as well.

    Not everyone is impressed by Facebook’s foray into dating:

  • Facebook Explains How News Feed Works in This Talk From F8 [Video]

    Facebook Explains How News Feed Works in This Talk From F8 [Video]

    Facebook has been sharing some videos of discussions from last week’s F8 developer conference. You can find a handful of them on the Facebook for Developers page.

    When it comes to Facebook, obviously the big goal for many of us is to get in front of more people in the News Feed, so I figured you might be interested in this one.

    Adam Mosseri, VP of Product Management for News Feed talks about “getting your content to the right people,” how News Feed works, and what it means to publishers.

    Of course Facebook is constantly changing how News Feed works. Earlier this week even, they announced a couple of adjustments to take into account length of time it expects users to spend on content and diversity in pages users are seeing posts from. We have a post up about that here.

  • Facebook Adds Features To Analytics for Apps [F8]

    Facebook Adds Features To Analytics for Apps [F8]

    Last year at its F8 developer conference, Facebook launched Analytics for Apps. At today’s event, the company announced push notifications and deeper insights for the offering as well as a new interface and better performance.

    There’s a new People Insights section that provides aggregated and anonymous demographic info for those using your app without requiring you to implement Facebook Login. This will provide insights like Page likes, education, device usage, purchase preferences, etc.

    “Push and In-App Notifications (Beta) help you reach your customers and automate your marketing campaigns with targeted messages,” says Facebook’s Josh Twist. “In addition to regular push notifications that deep link to a specific place in your app, in-app notifications give you the option to create and customize richer push experiences with photos and animated GIFs. We’ve open-sourced in-app notifications to make them fully customizable and extensible.”

    “Sharing insights help you see the most popular stories shared from your website to Facebook, the aggregatged demographics of the people who shared them, as well as a sentiment analysis, top quotes and other insights,” he says. “Breakdowns let you pivot your data across multiple dimensions including age, gender, platform, country, language, app version and more. They’re a great way to explore your data and answer questions like ‘How much of my revenue is coming from a particular platform-operating system combination in a particular country?’”

    There are improved event trends to help you get a better handle on demographics and behavior of your audience over time and an App Events Export API to debut events and analyze data offline. This allows for access of up to the last 30 days of events.

    Over 450,000 apps have already used Analytics for Apps.

    Image via Facebook

  • Facebook Instant Articles Now Officially Open To All Publishers

    Facebook Instant Articles Now Officially Open To All Publishers

    Two months ago, Facebook announced that on April 12, it would open Instant Articles to all publishers. That day has arrived, and Facebook has made good on its promise.

    With the company’s F8 developer conference underway, the company announced that publishers of any type or size can now utilize Instant Articles. You can now go to instantarticles.fb.com to join the program.

    “More than one thousand publishers worldwide are officially part of the program, and at every step of the way, we see clear evidence that Instant Articles provides a better reading experience for people and a significant boost for publishers looking to reach their audiences on Facebook,” says product manager Josh Roberts.

    “Additionally for many people around the world, it’s challenging to get news on mobile simply because it takes too long to load,” he adds. “We’ve invested heavily in optimizing performance on Android, with the goal of providing the best mobile reading experience for people everywhere, no matter where they are in the world or what connection or device they’re on. In countries like India, Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines and others, we’ve found that people on slower connections read 20-40% more Instant Articles than mobile web articles on average as a result.”

    Facebook also announced new partners and tools for Instant Articles. Publishing tool partners now include WordPress, Drupal, Atavist, Medium, Perk, Distributed, RebelMouse, ShareThis, Sovrn, Steller, and Tempest. Analytics tool partners include Adobe Analytics, Chartbeat, comScore, Nielsen, Parsely, and SimpleReach.

    As previously announced, Instant Articles also now support branded content as a result of Facebook’s recent policy change.

  • Facebook Opens Live API To Let Developers Build Ability To Stream to FB Live From Any Device [F8]

    Facebook Opens Live API To Let Developers Build Ability To Stream to FB Live From Any Device [F8]

    At F8, Facebook announced that it is opening up the Live API, which will let developers build the ability to stream to Facebook Live from any device.

    As part of the announcement, which came from Mark Zuckerberg himself, a drone floated above the stage. It’s using the API to stream from the conference to Facebook Live as the event goes on.

    Facebook has already announced a ton of new Facebook Live-related features over the past week, and as the streaming service becomes integrated with more and more apps and devices, these (particularly the discoverability features) will become significantly more important.

    Kurt Wagner makes a great point in that the API could “help entice bigger media players to go live, those that are used to producing video with a little more production power than a smartphone can capture.”

    Product manager Daniel Danker discusses the API in a blog post:

    Publishers with verified pages can get started with the Live API via Publishing Tools or by contacting one of our Media Solutions partners. These partners have built video production, editing, and streaming products that publish directly to Facebook Live and bring live video to life with features like camera switching, instant replay, on-screen graphics and special effects.

    Developers can learn how to integrate directly with Facebook Live using the Live API Documentation. The Go Live Dialog makes it particularly easy to get started. If you’re a developer and would like to integrate Facebook Live directly with your app or device, sign up to request access.

    The API can be used to build video streams that mix multiple video and audio sources and special effects. These can include programmatic sources including games and screencasts.

    The API can also be used in combination with Facebook’s Graph API to reflect viewer engagement in real time and create on-screen graphics that show poll results, analyze comments, or enable comment moderation.

    More here.

  • Watch F8 Live Right Here Via Facebook’s Official Stream

    Watch F8 Live Right Here Via Facebook’s Official Stream

    Facebook’s F8 developer conference begins today in San Francisco, but you don’t have to be there to see the opening keynote from Mark Zuckerberg or some of its stand-out sessions.

    You can view these right from the player below beginning at 10AM PST (streaming will actually begin at 9:30AM PST).

    Here’s the schedule for what you’ll be able to stream from the player today and tomorrow via an email from a Facebook spokesperson.

    Day 1 (April 12)

    10AM PT: Keynote
    12PM PT: Messenger: Connecting People and Businesses
    12:30PM PT: Growing Your Business with Facebook Pages
    1PM PT: Onboarding and Account Management for Apps
    2PM PT: Creating Value for News Publishers and Readers on Facebook
    3PM PT: Deeper Insights with Facebook Analytics for Apps

    Day 2 (April 13)

    10AM PT: Keynote
    12PM PT: The Technology Behind 360 Video
    1PM PT: Optimizing 360 Video for Oculus
    2PM PT: Leveraging Facebook as a Platform for eCommerce
    2:30PM PT: Building iOS Tooling at Facebook Scale

  • Facebook Announces Nearly 30 F8 Developer Meetups Around the World

    Facebook Announces Nearly 30 F8 Developer Meetups Around the World

    Facebook announced 27 F8 meetups around the world to coincide with F8, its annual developer event, which will take place on April 12 and 13. These will feature a live streams of the opening day keynote and time for developers to connect with their local developer communities.

    According to Facebook, over 70% of developers building on its platform are outside of the U.S., so the meetups are designed to get key content from the event in front of them.

    There are 18 meetups scheduled for April 12 in the following cities:

    Amsterdam, Netherlands
    Bangalore, India
    Berlin, Germany
    Bogota, Colombia
    Buenos Aires, Argentina
    Cape Town, South Africa
    Casablanca, Morocco
    Lagos, Nigeria
    London, United Kingdom
    Los Angeles, U.S.
    Mexico City, Mexico
    Nairobi, Kenya
    Paris, France
    Sao Paulo, Brazil
    Seattle, U.S.
    Stockholm, Sweden
    Tel Aviv, Israel
    Warsaw, Poland

    The following day will have meetups in the following locations:

    Delhi, India
    Dhaka, Bangladesh
    Jakarta, Indonesia
    Lahore, Pakistan
    Manila, Philippines
    Seoul, Korea
    Singapore, Singapore
    Taipei, Taiwan
    Tokyo, Japan

    Developers can register to attend one of the meetups here. If you’re interested, you better do it quickly because space is limited.

    The F8 keynote speech and selected sessions will be streamed live online.

    Image via Facebook

  • Big Facebook News For Anyone Publishing Content

    Big Facebook News For Anyone Publishing Content

    Facebook announced that on April 12, it will open Instant Articles to all publishers. This means that any publisher, regardless of size, will have this same content advantage as the major players Facebook has already catered to with the offering. If you create content, listen up!

    Do you plan to implement Facebook Instant Articles? Do you expect it to be an advantage? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    So far, Facebook has been allowing a few hundred publishers to take advantage, but this should mean a better user experience for many more pieces of content in users’ News Feeds.

    To be clear, Facebook says it’s extending the offering to any content publisher or blog. If you have a blog, you’ll be able to utilize Instant Articles.

    If you don’t have a blog, why the heck not? As we recently saw in a study from TrackMaven, blogs are frequently overlooked by businesses these days in favor of social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. But blogs can still be very effective and utilizing them more often can help you out a lot. Hopefully Instant Articles will only add momentum.

    You can sell and serve your own display ads in Instant Articles and keep 100% of the revenue. You can also monetize unsold inventory using display ads from Facebook’s Audience Network.

    You don’t have to create original content for Facebook. It’s just another way to distribute content you’re already producing. When someone shares an Instant Article on Twitter or by email, it also shares a link to your site.

    Beyond loading quickly, Instant Articles offer publishers some other interesting functionality such as autoplay videos that begin as readers scroll, the ability to zoom in on photos while tilting the phone, the ability to like and comment on individual photos and videos in a story, geo-tagged images, and swipable photo galleries.

    Product manager Josh Roberts says:

    Media organizations and journalists are an integral part of Facebook, and we’re committed to delivering products that will create the best experience for publishers and their readers. With Instant Articles, publishers have full control over the look of their stories, as well as data and ads. They have the ability to bring their own direct-sold ads and keep 100% of the revenue, and track data on the ads served through their existing ad measurement systems, or they can monetize their content through the Facebook Audience Network. Additionally, publishers can use their existing web-based analytics systems to track article traffic or use third-party providers. They can do all this while accessing a rich suite of multimedia tools to create dynamic, interactive stories, that will load quickly everywhere on Facebook, regardless of where in the world their readers are.

    We’ve made it easy for publishers to join by building a system based on the tools they already use. Instant Articles uses the languages of the web and works with publishers’ content management systems, and we have documented an open standard that is easy for publishers to adopt. We encourage all interested publishers to review our documentation and prepare for open availability in April, at which point they will be able to share this fast, interactive experience with their readers.

    Regarding content and audience analytics, Instant Articles supports comScore attribution, and publishers can use their existing analytics systems or third-party providers like Google Analytics or Omniture. The company is also in talks with European attribution and measurement providers.

    Facebook also lets publishers track reader-engagement with its own analytics tools. In addition to aggregate activity data, it provides info on article reach and engagement, time spent in each article, scroll-depth and engagement with rich media assets like photos and videos.

    The Instant Articles themselves so far appear for iPhone and Android users. Facebook says they work for any article type from daily coverage to long-form, in-depth articles.

    In case you’re wondering how much work it’s going to take to implement Instant Articles, Facebook says it has tried to make things as easy as possible.

    “After some basic setup, publishers can automate Instant Article production directly from their own content management systems, via RSS,” the company explains in an FAQ document. “Facebook provides tools so publishers can see all the items in their Facebook publishing feed and edit or revise content manually. Facebook also provides tools for publishers to preview articles before publication.”

    You’re no doubt wondering if using Instant Articles will help you in News Feed ranking and organic reach. Facebook’s official answer is no, but I’m sure it won’t hurt. They certainly seem to favor Facebook videos over YouTube videos.

    The April 12 launch date coincides with Facebook’s f8 developer conference, so there will no doubt be plenty of related takeaways coming out of that.

    F8 registration opened up earlier this month. You can apply here. They’ll also stream the event online.

    Google’s answer to Instant Articles – the open source AMP (which is being adopted by a variety of other organizations) – will get its real start for users this month when Google starts sending search traffic to the pages.

    Between AMP and Instant Articles, the mobile user experience in general is probably about to get a lot better over the coming months.

    Are you going to implement Instant Articles with your content? What about AMP? Let us know in the comments.

    Image via Facebook

  • Facebook F8 2016 Conference Is Open For Registration

    Facebook F8 2016 Conference Is Open For Registration

    Facebook just announced that registration is now open for F8 2016. IT takes place in San Francisco on April 12 & 13.

    F8 2016 – Registration is Now Open!

    Come meet with other developers and innovators who are excited about connecting the world! We're hosting F8, our global developer conference on April 12 + 13, in San Francisco, California.

    Posted by Facebook for Developers on Friday, January 29, 2016

    Here’s what you can expect from the event, according to a post on the Facebook Developers blog:

    – Keynote: Hear from Mark about how Facebook is helping developers build, grow and monetize success, and where we’re headed in the future.

    – 40+ Sessions: Attend talks from Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, Oculus, Instagram, advertising, engineering and more — there’s content for everyone across Facebook’s family of apps and services.

    – Interactive Demos: Experience our immersive products for yourself with hands-on demos featuring Oculus Rift and Touch, 360 video and more.

    – Innovation Lab: Learn how we plan to improve connectivity, enhance infrastructure and scale artificial intelligence and virtual reality around the world.

    – Meet the Facebook Team: Connect with our engineers and product experts for 1:1 personalized support to learn how you can grow and optimize your app business.

    – After Party: Join us for a fun after party at the end of the first conference day, and enjoy music, food and drinks while getting to know other developers.

    You can apply for the event here. Space is limited, but they will be streaming the whole thing online as usual.

    Image via Facebook

  • Facebook F8 Conference Dates Announced

    Facebook announced the dates of its next F8 developer event, which appears to be regularly held on an annual basis once again.

    If you’ll recall, years ago, Facebook held F8 nearly each year, but then the conference disappeared for a while. 2016’s event will make it the third year in a row.

    The first F8 was held in 2007, followed by events in 2008, and then 2010 and 2011. After taking 2012 and 2013 off, the event returned for dates in 2014 and 2015.

    F8 2016 will take place in San Francisco (Fort Mason) on April 12 and 13.

    Facebook’s Deborah Liu says, “The conference features new products and a glimpse into Facebook’s future. The two-day event will include a range of sessions with demo stations and the opportunity to speak with Facebook product experts.”

    You can head over to fbf8.com to sign up for updates and streaming access to the event.

    Past F8 events have unveiled such significant Facebook launches as the social graph, new profiles, Facebook Connect website integration, social plugins (like the Like button), Open Graph protocol, Graph API, the Facebook Audience Network, Anonymous Login, FbStart, and AppLinks, and more.

    This year’s event included announcements about Messenger as a platform and for Messenger for business, a new Comments plugin, and 360-degree videos.

    Image via Facebook

  • Facebook About To Force Big Login Change

    Facebook About To Force Big Login Change

    At last year’s F8 developer conference, Facebook announced some changes that would give users more control over what info they choose to share with apps. The company introduced the new Facebook Login, which lets users edit the permissions they give an app upon log in. They also announced a Login Review process and other changes to the API, which the company said were designed to protect people’s information.

    Facebook Login from Facebook on Vimeo.

    At the time, Facebook asked all developers to upgrade their apps to use the new Login and API by April 30th, 2015, which is this Thursday. At that point, Facebook will begin to upgrade all apps to Graph API v2.0 and remove access to any permissions that haven’t been approved via Login Review.

    “Many developers have already upgraded their apps, and we’re excited about the results,” a spokesperson for Facebook tells WebProNews. “Our Login Review team has reviewed more than 40,000 apps. On average, apps using the new Facebook Login are requesting 50 percent fewer permissions than apps using the previous version of Login. When apps request only the permissions that are right for people using them, people feel more comfortable logging into those apps.”

    “In fact, the overall average rate of people logging in using the new Login is 11 percentage points higher than the previous version,” the spokesperson adds. “If a developer has not yet upgraded their app, it will be automatically upgraded on or after April 30, though they can still choose to upgrade at any time before that happens.”

    When an app is upgraded, people will see the new Facebook Login Dialog, which includes the ability to decline permissions, so keep in mind that users may not always give you all the data you’re after. Certain permissions like friends’ photos will no longer be available.

    New people logging into the app will be known by an app-scoped ID. You can find an FAQ about the changes here.

    When Facebook first announced all of this, the social network was suffering from a slump in its share of social logins. Recent research from both Gigya and Janrain, however, shows that Facebook is still absolutely dominating the landscape, even extending its lead.

    Interestingly, Facebook’s share of B2B social logins looks to have spiked significantly over the past quarter, largely at the expense of LinkedIn’s.

    “LinkedIn’s Q4 gain across B2B websites didn’t last in Q1—total share of logins for the professional network fell 10% to 25%,” said Janrain’s report. “This decrease actually marks their lowest total share of logins in the B2B category since they became an IDP in Q4 2012. Facebook’s share increased a dramatic 11% to 35% of total logins after hitting their lowest number for B2B sites last quarter. Upcoming changes to the LinkedIn API, including a new, independent API for enabling job applicants on a corporate website to ‘Apply with LinkedIn,’ as well changes to their social sharing settings may create further shifts over the next few quarters.”

    Facebook’s login changes are being lauded for improving user privacy.

    Images via Facebook

  • Should You Use Facebook Comments On Your Site?

    There are a variety of tools websites can use for user comments on blog posts and other content. Facebook has offered an option for years, and there have always been pros and cons of using its solution. The company held its annual f8 developer conference this week, and introduced some changes. There are still pros and cons, but there are new ones to consider.

    Do you use Facebook comments on your site or blog? Why or why not? Tell us about your experience or concerns.

    Facebook launched an update to its Comments plugin with what it calls “a cleaner design to make the plugin compatible with more sites and optimized for mobile.” It also comes with a new moderation tool with better spam filtering.

    The really interesting part, however, is that there’s a new feature that syncs comments between content on your website and that same content as shared on your Facebook page. This particular feature is in beta, but could be the one that truly makes the plugin a better option for business websites.

    “With Comment Mirroring, people can participate in a single conversation, whether comments come from your web page or your Facebook Page,” Facebook explains. “When you share a link from your website to your Facebook page, comments on your webpage will also appear as comments on your Facebook post and vice versa.”

    This could be especially helpful for small businesses who don’t have actual social media managers keeping a close eye on all of their social accounts at all times. It will make engaging in conversations that much easier, and better yet, the whole conversation around the content (or at least a more substantial part of it) will be happening in one place. That adds value to the content. Facebook says the feature will drive higher quality discussions and more comments. It also says the plugin itself leads to higher engagement and time spent on site.

    “We’ve redesigned the comments moderation tool to make it easier and faster for your community management team to moderate multiple comments at once,” the company says. “We’ve also improved our spam detection and filtering with best-in-class detection and automation systems.”

    You can navigate the tool using app-based moderation view or page-based moderation view in the dashboard. You can promote other users to be moderators of your comments, blacklist words, and engage in other general moderation like reviewing, banning, etc.

    To get the plugin, you can find the code generator here.

    In addition to what you get with that, you can change several settings. Here’s what you can do:

    Users can sort through the comments a few different ways, including by social ranking, by newest, and by oldest.

    You can choose which sorting option you want to use as the default, but it naturally defaults to Social Ranking. According to Facebook this uses social signals to surface the highest quality comments first.

    “Comments are ordered to display the most relevant comments from friends and friends of friends as well as the most-liked or active discussion threads,” it says. “Comments marked as spam are hidden from view.”

    If you want to change the default, use the data-order-by attribute and replace “social” with “time” or “reverse_time”.

    You can also adjust the language. More on how to do that here.

    One drawback of the new version of the plugin is that it no longer supports third-party login on comment boxes, so users will have to use their Facebook profiles. This makes sense given the comment mirroring feature, so it’s really only a drawback if you think you’ll miss people not using Facebook to comment, which is certainly a possibility. This could be the main thing that keeps some sites from adopting the plugin as their commenting option.

    The old version of the Comments plugin will stop working on June 23, which is ninety days after the release of Facebook’s Graph API v2.3, which includes the new version. You’ll need to enable the new version of the Facebook SDK for JavaScript or define v2.3 in the data-version attribute of the Comments plugin tag to enable the new version of the plugin. If you don’t manually upgrade before June 23, your implementation of the plugin will do so automatically.

    You can find all the documentation you should need for the new Comments plugin here.

    Do you intend to use the new version of Facebook’s Comments plugin? Let us know what you think about it.

    Images via Facebook

  • What Businesses Will Be Able To Do With Facebook Messenger

    Much of Facebook’s opening f8 keynote on Wednesday was about Facebook Messenger, which the company has now turned into a developer platform. The other major piece of Messenger news was that users will soon be able to interact with businesses. For businesses, this means a new, direct, and very personal way to engage with customers.

    Would you like to use Messenger to engage with customers? Let us know in the comments.

    As a business, you can enable your customers to connect with you via Messenger. If they elect to do so, you’ll be able to send them personalized updates and talk to them in real time. A website integration might look like this:

    You can use custom layouts for order confirmation, shopping updates, etc. As the company says, “This lets your customers keep all their order info in one place and reach out to you if they need to change anything.”

    It remains to be seen whether or not people actually want to engage with businesses via Messenger. There is something to be said about being able to get customer support in real time, but I don’t know how I feel about giving every site I buy something from free rein to send me messages as they wish. Email still works pretty well for that.

    As Messenger’s David Marcus explained in the keynote, it does have the potential to make the customer service aspect more convenient as the company already has all of the relevant information about who you are and what you bought right from the get go. Everything takes place in the same discussion thread as your receipt. It’s unclear how the opt out process works.

    Facebook has already partnered with Zendesk on customer support in Messenger, and is calling on additional partners to sign up.

    The whole thing is just in preview status for the time being. Facebook does have a form where interested businesses can sign up for more details about getting involved.

    Do you expect your customers to want to engage with your business through Messenger? Discuss.

    Images via Facebook

  • Facebook Messenger Now A Platform, Provides Guidelines For Developers

    Facebook just kicked off its annual f8 developer conference, announcing Messenger Platform and Businesses on Messenger. The former enables developers to build apps that Messenger users can take advantage of in conversations. The latter seems to be looking to take over email for business-to-consumer communications.

    Facebook is expanding the composer in Messenger to enable users to find more services (apps) they can use to enhance their conversations. You can browse available apps and install them right there.

    When you use one of the apps, the person will have the ability to reply with the same app if they already have it installed. Otherwise, they’ll be presented with a way to install it right from your message. Or they can just respond their own way. Apps showed off at the event included ones that let you communicate with animated gifs or stylized, animated text.

    40 apps are launching right way, but the platform will enable an unlimited amount of them to bring new and interesting ways of communicating into the fold.

    Available apps include: Action Movie FX, Bitmoji, Cleo Video Texting, Clips, ClipDis, Ditty, Dubsmash, Effectify, EmotionAR, Emu, ESPN, FlipLip Voice Changer, Fotor, GIF Keyboard, GIFJam, Giphy, Hook’d, Imgur, Imoji, JibJab, Kanvas, Keek, Legend, Magisto, Meme Generator, Noah Camera, Pic Stitch, PicCollage GIF Cam, PingTank, Pyro!, Score! on Friends, Selfied, Shout, Sound Clips, StayFilm, Stickered, Strobe, Tackl, Talking Tom, Tempo, The Weather Channel, to.be Camera, UltraText, and Wordeo.

    App content can be shared through both private and group messages.

    As Facebook notes, this all presents developers with new growth and reengagement opportunities.

    “Messenger Platform apps can display the option for a person to install the app from within Messenger, or to reply using content from the app,” says Facebook’s Lexy Franklin. “If the person receiving the message doesn’t already have an app installed, they can tap Install to be taken directly to the app store to get started using the app. This means people can discover apps recommended by their friends, naturally through their conversations.”

    “With Messenger Platform, developers may also see increased app engagement,” Franklin adds. “If the person receiving the message already has the app installed, they’ll be able to tap Reply on an image in a message. Then, instead of scrolling through pages of apps on their phone, they’ll be taken directly to the app to reengage and respond with relevant content.”

    Some apps will have some nice visibility in a new tab within Messenger conversations. This provides shortcuts to apps people have installed as well as some they “might be interested in trying.” Facebook says to think of featured apps as an “editorial list of some of the best Messenger integrations.”

    Facebook wants apps optimized for Messenger to be conversational, expressive, and/or personal, and has guidelines for these traits:

    For sharing, Facebook also recommends making your app exclusively for Messenger, limiting sharing actions to Messenger’s Send button and Save to Camera Roll, making any editing and composition tools lightweight, minimizing the number of steps between opening and sending, using the Send button whenever you initiate a send to Messenger, and following its brand guidelines.

    For replies, Facebook says to land users directly in a content-creation experience if there is one, display content that’s relevant to the conversation (and participants if possible), and match the instructions for adding a reply flow in the tech docs. You can find all the necessary documentation from here.

    As far as the brand guidelines go, Facebook wants you to accurately describe how your app works in its name, and says to only use the naming convention “AppName for Messenger” only if the app is exclusively for Messenger and the Messenger platform integration has been reviewed and approved by Facebook. More on the review process here.

    The company says not to use names that imitate or could be confused with its own trademarks and not to claim trademark rights in “Messenger”.

    “Your icon should represent your brand,” the company says. “We provide a Messenger Platform Icon Badge that may be used in some circumstances, solely to indicate that your app is integrated with the Messenger Platform. The Icon Badge does not represent an endorsement, sponsorship, or verification by Facebook.”

    They provide a Photoshop template to add the Icon badge to your app icon, but warns not to modify the template or resulting icon in any other way and not to use any other Messenger branding or any of its trademarks.

    They also say not to modify their Messenger buttons or use any other buttons to share content to Messenger.

    “Your marketing should focus on the unique qualities of your app,” Facebook says. “You may also indicate that your app is integrated with the Messenger Platform. However, you may not suggest that you are endorsed or sponsored by us. You may not use the Messenger Logo in your marketing.”

    Facebook provides Messenger SDKs for both iOS and Android. Those along with all of the guidelines and other documentation can be found here.

    Clearly Facebook is aiming to turn Messenger into much more of its own product by enabling new functionalities. The company also announced at f8 that users will be able to communicate directly with businesses from the app. For example, if you place an order online, you can get tracking information and receipts right in message as you would in an email, and if you need to make changes or talk with someone at the company, you can do so right from Messenger in the same thread. This follows the previously announced ability to send payments in the app.

    What once was simply Facebook’s instant message feature has morphed into its own ecosystem. Facebook plans to do a lot more of this kind of thing too. One of the major themes of Mark Zuckerberg’s opening keynote was that they want to let people do more with and share more through the Facebook family of apps. Very little emphasis was placed on Facebook itself.

    Messenger currently has over 600 million users.

    Images via Facebook

  • Facebook Finally Lets You Embed Facebook Videos

    Facebook has just fixed something truly irksome. Starting now, you can embed Facebook videos on your website.

    But Josh, you could always do that! Wrong. You have been able to embed entire posts for some time now, like this:

    Don't Wear Flip Flops If You Are Going To Drink

    Posted by Meetville on Wednesday, March 18, 2015

    But as you can see, that comes with the profile of the uploader and their caption prominently featured. Sometimes that’s not what you want.

    Now, look how much better this looks:

    Don't Wear Flip Flops If You Are Going To Drink

    Posted by Meetville on Wednesday, March 18, 2015

    Also, look at that drunk idiot guy who’s clearly tripping balls.

    It’s smart and streamlined, and should get people more excited about sharing Facebook videos – as opposed to YouTube, for instance. We all know how important video is to Facebook’s current and future strategy. At today’s f8 developers conference, Mark Zuckerberg said that there are over three billion video views a day.

  • 360-Degree Videos: Coming Soon to Your Facebook News Feed

    360-Degree Videos: Coming Soon to Your Facebook News Feed

    Facebook’s annual f8 developers conference just kicked off, and in the keynote CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that spherical (360 degree) videos are coming to your Facebook News Feed.

    We already know that video is becoming a more widely used media on Facebook. Recently, Facebook revealed that the number of video posts per person had increased 75 percent globally and a whopping 94 percent in the US. At today’s conference, Zuckerberg said that there are over three billion video views a day on Facebook. That’s pretty mind-blowing.

    Zuckerberg also talked about the future of content on Facebook. Five years ago, he said, most of the stuff you saw on Facebook was text – status updates and wall posts. Now it’s photos. Soon, it’ll be video, he said. And further down the line he thinks it’ll be virtual and augmented reality.

    I guess Zuckerberg is trying to hasten that future scenario, and adding cool new 360-degree videos to the news feed is a small first step

    These 360-degree videos are filmed with rigs that sport 24 cameras at once, providing the viewer the chance to not only see all angles of a shot, but also participate and choose how they move about the space. Here’s an example:

    That’s from YouTube, which just recently added support for these sorts of videos.

    According to Zuckerberg, Facebook is bringing spherical video to the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset and is currently “experimenting with live spherical video.”

    Image via YouTube

  • Facebook Set To Have Biggest F8 To Date

    Facebook Set To Have Biggest F8 To Date

    Facebook announced on Tuesday that developers can now register for this year’s F8 developer conference, which will take place on March 25 and 26 at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center.

    The company says this will be its biggest F8 to date, and will feature every Facebook developer product and company, including Instagram, Parse, Messenger, WhatsApp, and an opening talk on day two from Oculus’ Chief Scientist Michael Abrash.

    Facebook developers are no doubt just happy that Facebook is back to hosting annual F8 events. There was a period there when they stopped doing it.

    The invent will include over 40 sessions as well as product updates and “deep dives across all of Facebook’s breadth of developer tools, including App Ads, App Links, Audience Network, Parse, LiveRail, Login, Video, and much more.”

    Attendees can be among the first to demo the Oculus Rift Crescent Bay prototype and get hands-on time with Gear VR.

    Instagram’s Mike Krieger, Messenger’s David Marcus, and WhatsApp’s Brian Acton will discuss the future of communications.

    There will also be a Developer Garage exhibition area, where developers can get some one on one time with engineers for advice on design, monetization, security, analytics, etc.

    You can check out the full schedule here, and register here. They’ll be streaming the keynotes and other sessions as well as live interviews from the show floor.

    Image via Facebook

  • Facebook Sets Date For F8, Expands It To 2 Days

    Facebook announced the date for its next F8 developer conference. Not only that, but it has doubled the time it’s giving to devs, extending the event to two days.

    F8 will take place in San Francisco on March 25 and 26.

    Facebook is inviting the technical community to two full days of sessions, workshops, product demos, and “1:1 time” with Facebook’s product experts.

    Why two days this time?

    Facebook says, “Facebook’s developer community is bigger today than it ever has been. The scope of the company’s products has broadened, and there’s more content to share than can fit into a single day. The additional day means double the number of technical sessions, product demos, and onsite experiences for Facebook’s growing developer community.”

    This year, F8 featured quite a few announcements, including the Facebook Audience Network, FB Start, App Links, anonymous login, and more.

    This was the first F8 the company held since 2011, so it’s nice to see the company getting back in touch with developers. The fact that they’ve added another day seems to suggest they’re going to be giving even more love in the coming year.

    Invitation and registration details will be available in early 2015.

    Image via Facebook