The Facebook Blog

We've launched the beta version of the Facebook Development Platform, a new set of services enabling developers to create outside applications that work with Facebook. This first edition will bring Facebook friend relationships, photos, events, and profile information to web and desktop applications. We think this is a great opportunity for users and developers to engage with Facebook in new and exciting ways.

If you're a programmer, you should check out the Facebook Development Platform Group. You can share your ideas, find people with common interests, and ask questions of the community of Facebook developers. The discussion group has a lot to offer, including the direct assistance of the Facebook team that brought you the development platform.

For people who aren't into programming, the Facebook Development Platform means you'll begin to see interesting applications, both on the web and your desktop, that extend your Facebook experience to anything that you're into. We enforce the same set of privacy rules for your information as when you're on Facebook, but now you can choose to use your information in the applications developed by other people through our platform. To see what people have done, and what you'd like to use, check out the product directory.

Facebook runs because of work done in the development community, so we're really excited to contribute this development platform back to it. Our new site at http://developers.facebook.com also includes some open source projects we've been working on.


Dave Fetterman is the lead engineer of the Facebook Development Platform.