Update to Facebook’s New API

Last week I posted an entry about the new Facebook API that is due to be released sometime this summer. Well today, it was announced that Facebook is opening it up for all users to check out on July 16th. While this isn’t the official launch, it still seems pretty close seeing as how the API is really buggy currently and on the Developer Forums, a lot of the programmers haven’t starting converting their apps over yet.

There is no mention of the “official” launch date as of yet but they say in their post that “early next week, we’ll post more answers to FAQs and share the new policies around the new profile design.” That seems kind of bad since they are opening up the new platform to everyone to check out next week as well. I foresee a lot of people complaining that the apps they have installed don’t work. Of course they don’t, programmers are still working with the buggy API and trying to find their way around in a new, dark room.

I am one who is 100% in favor of the new look and feel that Facebook is releasing but personally I feel that they need to get the API working closer to 100% rather than 50% and have more documentation before they announce to the masses to “come check this out.” Luckily they aren’t requiring all apps to use the new API as of yet but hopefully it won’t come too soon.

Working with New Facebook API

As I’ve written previously, I have worked on a few Facebook applications. I’ve gotten quite familiar with the intricacies of Facebook and how things work using its API. It’s an interesting way of doing things if you ever get the chance to check it out.

Anyhow, I’ve been working for the past week or so on getting to know the new API and platform changes that Facebook should be releasing in the next month or so. While it seems that a lot of things will just work as is, there are a couple of main points that will need to be changed for any Facebook app written on the current platform.

The main change I feel is the way that the application publishes feeds. Previously, you would call the Feed.publishTemplatizedAction function. It is pretty basic and relatively easy to understand. With the new platform, this old call is being removed and to be replaced with a couple of API calls. With the old platform, you needed to register your templates, get a Template ID back from Facebook, and then use that to call your feeds whenever.

I had a lot of issues at first getting the syntax correct on how the data was passed to the feeds since there isn’t a lot of documentation on how they are supposed to look. Especially since Facebook changed the call Feed.registerTemplateBundle. But once I got the new changes implemented and the hang of it, publishing feeds stories finally worked as they once did.

The big change to the feed stories is that you are able to have 3 feed sizes. The default is the one-liner. Just like it sounds, one line of copy. Next are the short story and the full story. They are very similar with the exception that you actually register an array of short stories with each one having one less dynamic piece than the one before it. With full stories, you only register one but you can make it large. I’m not sure of the size difference between the short and full stories as I don’t think that has been decided as of yet. If so, let me know.

Those are really the only things that I have done with the new API as of yet. Seems really cool but also a lot of work to keep your old apps working seamlessly. First of all, each application that you have, you will have to run the Feed.registerTemplateBundle API function to get a template ID for your app to use exclusively. Secondly, you will have edit your API calls to now call the Feed.publishUserAction instead of the Feed.publishTemplatizedAction call being made previously. It’s not a “huge” change but still there are a few differences.

My idea for updating the apps that I have worked on was to just change the API code that we use on every project but I have seen that won’t work exactly as I had planned. Currently, I pass the entire feed story as a string into the API call but with the new way, I’m going to have to pass a JSON array because the story itself has already been registered along with the template ID. It’s not a big deal but it would be nice if Facebook made their API a little bit more backwards compatible. But I can see why they are doing it this way. Everything is changing and it would be hard to keep the old stuff working. I would like the ability to register templates like they do it currently through a form on the Facebook site. That way I wouldn’t have to create a page on each app just to get a number back and then remove that page. Seems like kind of a waste to me but it’s still early, maybe they’ll do that.

If you have worked with the new Facebook API, I would love to hear about your experiences and what you think about some of the pending changes. I’m excited to see what changes end up happening and where the platform goes.

Streamy Review – So Far, So Good

So I hunted down and finally received and invite to Streamy last weekend and got to get my grubby hands on it. So far I like what I see. I tried so hard to get it because of what I had heard; that is was the “Next Latest and Greatest” web app. While I can’t quite agree with that, I definitely can say that I would give it a “Thumbs Up”.

I have never been one to really get into the RSS readers before. I have one on the gadget bar for Vista but nothing other than that. Streamy has a really good way of handling RSS feeds. Very easy to add and go through. After you see one, it marks it read and takes it away. Not sure if it is lost forever from your subscriptions but it does what I would want so I’ve never looked.

I do like the start page but have run into a few situations where I have seen some old stories that should have only been up there for 24 hours. Not a big deal at all.

I really like the instant messaging offered. I haven’t used it yet but it seems really easy to IM your friends and share articles that you are reading. I can see this as very productive.

This brings me to my negative comment about the site. I really wish that they would open it up to more people. I would love to get some more friends of mine in here but I am only given a limited amount of invites (2 per email address). If they were to make that something in the 5-10 range, I can see this thing really taking off. If I was able to easily invite more of my friends and co-workers, I think my experience would be a whole lot better.

Overall I would give Streamy a 7 out of 10 rating (9 out of 10 if they let more users in). It’s a great app and I highly recommend begging anyone for an invite. I still have one left