Facebook Applications to Run From Any Website

Facebook has announced the availability of a JavaScript client library that makes it possible to make calls to Facebook APIs from any website.

A snippet from the Facebook Developers blog

This JavaScript client library allows you to make Facebook API calls from any web site and makes it easy to create Ajax Facebook applications. Since the library does not require any server-side code on your server, you can now create a Facebook application that can be hosted on any web site that serves static HTML. An application that uses this client library should be registered as an iframe type. This applies to either iframe Facebook apps that users access through the Facebook web site or apps that users access directly on the app’s own web sites. Almost all Facebook APIs are supported.

Facebook is taking social applications programming mainstream. With the recent API it makes it possible to target social data available via API calls from any website.

The process makes users leverage the data from Facebook and it will be interesting to see how criticism related to Facebook’s “Walled garden approach” is played out.

An excerpt from TechWorld

“Rather than building your applications strictly within Facebook, you can now extend the full functionality of the platform to your own website and leverage Facebook as the tool for managing members and their relationships. Want to build your own social gaming platform that resides on your own website but leverages the power of users’ Facebook relationships? Now you can!”

So how do you see the developments in the social platform field shaping up with Facebook offering itself as an application host?

Arun on January 30, 2008 Subscribe to our RSS Feed