Five Facebook developments you should know about
Facebook’s set to go through a few changes again over the coming months, so I thought I’d detail some of the plans for anyone with a presence on the social network.
Depending on whether you have a Profile, Page or App, there are some points worth bearing in mind in order to maintain or augment some of the functionality of your activity.
1. The user interface is getting a redesign. There’s going to be a left hand column through which users can navigate their feed, events, photos, games, apps etc. This’ll take up about 25% of the screen on the left, and gives app owners the opportunity to get a shortcut permanently on a user’s homepage.
However, app and page owners will have to rethink some of their functionality. This new column will replace where users currently have their “boxes” – so you’ll no longer be able to include app functionality or content here. In addition, it means that application tabs on profiles will now be about a third narrower (instead of 760px wide, they’ll be 520px wide). Of course, this means if your app or page makes full use of the 760px wide tab at the moment, it may well need a redesign.
Canvas pages (where users make use of a full application) are unaffected.
Timescale for implementation: Late ‘09 early ‘10
2. Facebook are going to implement Open Graph API (nice name…). Any website will be able to install a Fan widget, which will let visitors “fan” the site. This means you’ll be able to have a Facebook presence without having a Page on Facebook. You’ll then be able to publish stories to fans through the widget.
Timescale for implementation: Early ‘10
3. Facebook app owners should be getting access to their users’ email addresses (previously you’ve had to message users through Facebook’s inbox). It’s unclear how you’ll be able to email users (will it be through Facebook or through your own platforms?) but this has the potential to expand a brand’s eCRM activity. As with eCRM though, you’ll need to plan a decent strategy with reasonable frequencies, timings and messaging etc.
Timescale for implementation: November ‘09 (!)
4. More analytics. The insight tool’s going to be expanded to include more activity (such as feed distribution, which shows how many people saw the social actions your page/app generated) and also be given an accesible API. This should be great as you’ll be able to pull the data from your insight tool into other areas. The potential’s big here, especially for agencies to integrate into reporting software.
Timescale for implementation: Late ‘09 early ‘10
5. This is already implemented, but Facebook pages can now publish updates to specific regions and languages. There’s now an “Everyone” button next to “Share”; click on it and you’ll be able to customise your audience.
Timescale for implementation: Now
