Building Facebook Applications with Ruby on Rails Zachary Taylor - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Building Facebook Applications with Ruby on Rails Zachary Taylor - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Dec 13, 2023 566 likes •812 views

Building Facebook Applications with Ruby on Rails Zachary Taylor Silicon Valley Ruby on Rails December 13, 2007 Why Facebook? 50 million+ users, more than 20 million active Potential for massive viral distribution Build just for

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SLIDE 1

Building Facebook Applications with Ruby

  • n Rails

Zachary Taylor Silicon Valley Ruby on Rails December 13, 2007

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SLIDE 2

Why Facebook?

  • 50 million+ users, more than 20 million active
  • Potential for massive viral distribution
  • Build just for Facebook, or compliment your

existing app

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SLIDE 3

Anatomy of an App

  • Left Nav
  • Canvas Pages
  • Profile
  • Profile Box
  • Profile Action Links
  • News Feed
  • Alerts
  • Message Attachments
  • Requests
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SLIDE 4

Other pieces

  • Product Directory
  • About
  • Privacy Settings
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SLIDE 5

Get started

  • Add the Developer Facebook app
  • Set up a new application
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SLIDE 6
  • Application name
  • Callback URL
  • Path to the Facebook app on

your server

  • Canvas page URL
  • Path on Facebook where your

app will live

  • IFrame or FBML?
  • Can your application be added
  • n Facebook?
  • Post-Add URL

To set up your app:

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SLIDE 7

FBML vs. Iframe

  • FBML
  • Many convenient Facebook-specific tags
  • Easier to make your app look ‘native’
  • Facebook helps with caching
  • No Javascript, ‘Mock’ AJAX
  • Can embed Iframe
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SLIDE 8

FBML vs. Iframe

  • Iframe
  • Requests to the canvas page are redirected to your

server, and displayed in an Iframe

  • Full CSS and Javascript support
  • Easy to port existing views
  • Have to write CSS to mimic Facebook UI
  • Lack of convenient FBML extensions
  • Using Iframe makes it easier to port to OpenSocial
  • r other social networks
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SLIDE 9

RFacebook

“RFacebook is a Ruby interface to the Facebook API. It hides all the nitty- gritty details behind a beautiful Ruby front-end, allowing you to focus on writing great code.”

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SLIDE 10

RFacebook on Rails

A plugin that provides controller, view, model and session extensions, as well as a simple debug panel.

  • require_facebook_install and require_facebook_login filters
  • fbsession object can make any API call
  • ex: fbsession.users_getInfo(:uids => [1234])
  • seamless routes: url_for, link_to, etc. are automatically relative

to http://apps.facebook.com when it detects that you are in the canvas.

  • acts_as_facebook_user
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SLIDE 11

Start coding

  • gem install rfacebook
  • script/plugin install svn://rubyforge.org/var/svn/

rfacebook/plugins/rfacebook_on_rails

  • rake facebook:setup
  • put your API key and your API secret in config/

facebook.yml

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SLIDE 12

The Facebook API

  • User information
  • Friend information
  • Photos
  • Publish to feed
  • Notifications
  • Profile box
  • And more... (groups, events, marketplace, etc.)
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SLIDE 13

Requiring install

  • RFacebook on Rails has

require_facebook_install and require_facebook_login methods

  • Require installs rather than just logins. It’s the

same amount of friction to the user

  • Will redirect to an install screen if app is not

installed

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SLIDE 14

fbsession

  • Uses method_missing, can make any API call
  • Populates common fields for you (api_key, session_key,

call_id, etc.), other parameters must be specified.

  • Use dot syntax for simple data access
  • response.hpricot to parse XML directly
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SLIDE 15

acts_as_facebook_user

  • Just add facebook_uid and facebook_session_id to

your user model

  • User.find_or_create_by_facebook_session(fbsession)
  • Uses method_missing to make API calls
  • user.first_name, user.pic, user.birthday, etc.
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SLIDE 16

Invites

  • Limit 20 per user per day
  • Effective, but challenging to motivate your users

to invite their friends

  • Now you have to use Facebook invite widget
  • Consider prompting users to invite friends right

before the payoff

  • Consider prompting users to invite friends
  • nce a day
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SLIDE 17

Profile box

  • Always comes up
  • Surprisingly, one of the most effective viral

channels

  • Build a great profile box
  • People love clicking on pictures
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SLIDE 18

Notifications

  • Spam metered
  • When a user clicks ‘X’, Facebook asks if they

want to hide this notifications, all notifications from this app, or if it’s spam.

  • Consider tracking your own notifications, with

a rolling timeout. Never send more than one notification to one user per week/month.

  • 5 email notifications per user per day
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SLIDE 19

Feeds

  • 98% of feeds don’t make it
  • Use feed templates to increase the likelihood

that your feeds will be seen

  • A/B test for effectiveness
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Application Directory

  • Hard to find, hard to navigate, yet it drives a

significant number of installs

  • Take care when naming and describing your app
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SLIDE 21

Be simple!

  • No if/thens
  • People love clicking and hate typing
  • Test the waters for initial viral acceptance, then

focus on engagement

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SLIDE 22

Follow the data

  • A/B Test
  • Track viral channels individually
  • Track your app, and keep an eye on fast

movers, with Appsaholic

  • Track your application adds by Facebook

referrer from the ‘More Stats’ page.

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SLIDE 23

Links

  • RFacebook - http://rfacebook.rubyforge.org
  • Intro at http://livelearncode.com/archives/14
  • Tutorial at http://www.liverail.net
  • http://developers.facebook.com
  • API docs, FBML docs, Wiki
  • http://www.facebook.com/developers
  • Developer community
  • Create and administer apps here
  • Subscribe to feeds