Facebook Cookbook - Jay Goldman [34]
Figure 3-7. tvClickr About Page
Figure 3-8. tvClickr Log in to Application page
Discussion
There are a number of spots in this flow where the whole thing can go pear shaped and you’ll lose potential installers. You need to put a lot of thought and effort into making sure your About Page is a gleaming model of marketing brilliance, carefully tweaked and toned to optimize the experience for would-be users. Keep in mind that your application’s Photo and Description will be only two of the things people see, so you need to be a conscientious community gardener and keep close tabs on the Reviews, Discussion Board, and Wall Posts. Reply to people who have problems, encourage users to become fans and leave positive reviews, and provoke good conversations if your Boards are empty. The more activity that visitors see, the more likely they are to install and give it a try (remember that no one likes to be the first to the party, but everyone wants to get into the crowded bar).
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[5] I actually have installed it—and it’s a great example of an app that thinks considerably outside the “box” of typical Facebook apps. Such is my dedication to you, the reader, that I uninstalled it for the purpose of this example.
Chapter 4. Architecture and Design
Building Facebook apps requires you to master the trifecta of dating: a pretty face, a winning personality, and a rock-solid architecture that can handle scaling tall buildings in a single bound.
Building an app is a lot like building a house: poor architecture and foundations will only lead to a rickety structure that falls over the first time the big bad wolf blows on it (and by “big bad wolf,” I mean 100,000 users). Knowledge is power, so arm yourself with a thorough understanding of the way Facebook applications are structured, as well as some practical techniques for optimizing your app’s underpinnings.
Once you have the basics down, bring out the best in your awesome framework by adding a beautiful and functional design. If you’re more of a developer than a designer, don’t make the classic mistake of applying lipstick to your pig: good user experience design is much deeper than a pretty skin.
NOTE
Most of this chapter is aimed at web developers who are building web-based Facebook apps, but a lot of the lessons in here can be abstracted to desktop apps as well.
Under the Hood: How Facebook Apps Work
Problem
I’ve heard that I have to host my own Facebook app, even though people access it through Facebook’s site. I don’t understand—how does this all work?
Solution
Facebook Platform architecture is brilliant from its perspective: you go and do all the hard work of building apps, and you have to pay for the hosting, too. The upside is, of course, that you get unparalleled access to a dedicated audience of 90 million users and the ease of building on a fairly mature and well-realized Platform.
The short solution is: yes, you host your app. You’ll need to find a robust hosting provider who can scale up quickly if things go your way and who won’t charge you an exorbitant fee if you exceed your allocated traffic (see Hosting for more information about hosting choices).
Discussion
Let’s take a look at what happens when someone requests a page from your app (Figure 4-1).
Figure 4-1. Facebook Platform
The user’s browser requests http://apps.facebook.com/myapp.
That address points to a cluster of servers in Facebook’s data center. Their servers analyze the request, determine which app it’s for, then look up the callback URL that the app developer provided and make a call to it behind the scenes.
Facebook server requests http://www.myserver.com/index.php.
This call, which happens behind the scenes and is invisible to the user, goes into your application server. If you’re hosted with Joyent or Amazon, you can take advantage of especially low latency rates, which speed this part of the process up considerably.
Your application server makes API calls to the Facebook Server as required by your page.
This can, of