By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
We're on hand at the MaRS Discovery District in downtown Toronto where Facebook has brought together developers to partake of its f8 developer conference. This is the first major Facebook event or announcement that we've attended here in Canada even if it is a stream of the actual event taking place in San Francisco which has 2,000 developers in attendance. This is the first time in three years that Facebook has hosted f8 so there's a lot to cover.
What's expected today? Rumour has it that there will be an ecommerce-platform announcement as well as a product testing service, it will be interesting to see where Facebook is headed in terms of mobile, an area that's been near and dear to the social network.
In the last year alone, Facebook opened its pocketbook and bought stalwart services Instagram and WhatsApp Messenger for insane amounts of money and stock. Facebook also bought the VR gaming headset Oculus Rift and we migth see how all these costly acquisitions figure into the growing Facebook ecosystem. Stay tuned for more news from the keynote.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the developers with a message for mobile right out fo the gate. The focus for Facebook is mobile, specially since more than half of its business is on mobile devices because people are increasingly accessing Facebook services via smartphones and tablets.
According to Zuckerberg, more than a billion people on mobile 59% percent of business for FB is mobile. Facebook wants to share its experiences in mobile to create a unified and stablet appl development platform which sounds like a universal standard for cross platform app development. This means that Facebook might likely offer a competing platfrom to iOS, Android and Windows Phone using the same tools its own engineers are using.
Among the services announced by Zuckerberg during his keynote was an anonymous login feature that will allow users to try apps and services without fear. A new Facebook login solution, which 'puts people first,' is more secure and transparent means to 'Log In with Facebook".
Facebook is commited to building scalable, stable and people-friendly apps. This seems to be the focus of this years f8.
More than a dozen new products were announced, including Facebook’s update to Login, which gives people more control over the information they share with apps, and the Audience Network, which allows advertisers to easily extend their Facebook campaigns into other mobile apps.
The new products support Facebook’s focus to help developers build, grow and monetize their apps. They include:
Build:
● [[New Facebook Login]]: Letting people choose what information to share with apps.
● [[Anonymous Login]]: A way for people to log into apps without sharing personal information from Facebook with developers.
● [[Improved stability]]: A two-year guarantee on stability for Facebook’s core developer products.
● [[App links]]: Making linking between apps easier.
● Parse updates: Updated [[pricing]] for Parse, the mobile app development platform that helps developers ship their apps, to make building apps less expensive. Also introduced tools for developers to build apps with Parse that work [[offline]].
Grow:
● [[Message Dialog]]: Letting people share content from apps with friends through Facebook Messenger.
● [[Mobile Like Button]]: Like the Pages or content of individual apps through a native, mobile Like button.
● [[FbStart]]: A new program to help mobile startups grow through a package of resources and tools provided by industry leaders.
● [[Send to Mobile]]: An easy way for people to send an app to their phone after visiting a website and logging in with Facebook.
Monetize:
● [[Audience Network]]: Expanded test of the Audience Network, which allows advertisers to easily extend their Facebook campaigns into other mobile apps. It uses Facebook’s powerful targeting and reporting capabilities to deliver and measure ads in apps off Facebook.
Finally, today we also announced four new public content APIs to help media companies tell richer stories with Facebook content and data.