Category Archives: Facebook API

by by Majestic Media

Facebook Launches New APIs To Ease Transition To Timeline


Facebook announced that they have launched new APIs  to support some of the new features associated with the Timeline format for pages.

The new APIs will manage:

  • Messages
  • Milestones  
  • About section 
  • Apps 
  • and Posts.

By implementing these APIs, it will allow page management applications to successfully manage these various features.

One of the key APIs is the messages.  This API will allow brands  to incorporate messages in to a page management tool meaning that, in theory, they could assign messages as tickets to specific individuals as opposed to having their page manager respond to all incoming messages without the ability to escalate.

With these new APIs, brands will also be able to have 3rd party apps manage milestones, page posts, upload cover photos and change tab app icons.  For more information check out the Facebook Developers Blog.

If you still haven’t updated your brands page to the Timeline format take a look at Majestic Media’s guide to the Timeline

by by Majestic Media

Using The Real-time Update API


Many apps have the need to update users’ information in order to keep the content being displayed relevant to a specific user.  Many apps query the graph API  each time a user logs in, however there is a more efficent way to accomplish this.

Facebook recommends that developers utilize the real time updates API to receive updated information.  This API allows an app to subscribe to changes.  This is a much more efficient method than polling Facebook servers at each user login.  By using this API your app will be able to cache data and update user updates when they change.

According to Facebook’s developer blog, you are able to apply this API to the following categories:

  • User – Get notifications about particular fields and connections corresponding to User objects in the Graph API.
  • Permissions – Get notifications when Users change the permissions they afford your applications. The fields are like those in the corresponding FQL table.
  • Page – Get notifications when Pages that have installed your app as a Tab change their public properties.
    Note that the page topic is only used for subscribing to changes to public attributes of the page (like name, category, picture etc). This is the same information that is returned by the Graph API call https://graph.facebook.com/. However, you can subscribe to the page’s feed in the same way you subscribe to a User’s feed – the subscription topic should be User and the subscription field should be feed

Developers are able to select what information they wish to subscribe to.  For example if your app displays information based on the location you are able to have only that updated on your backend if a user changes their info.

If you wish to learn more about the real-time update API you can do so here.