Using Facebook "For the Web" applications

May 30, 2007 11:06 AM

Social-networking-research-for-work: Not a fan of the social networking scene, but too bad for me. Can someone please explain the purpose of Facebook's "For the Web" applications found in the Application Directory?

In particular, I am wondering about the Career Center a.k.a. Jobster. As far as I can tell it's just a fancy way to link to the Jobster web site. What am I missing? How is this application supposed to be used (within Facebook)?

Thanks!

posted by unsigned to computers & internet (2 comments total)

Haven't done much with the new applications, but here's what it looks like to me:

"For Facebook" applications exist within the Facebook interface. You can play around with applications without leaving the site, add apps to your profile, etc.

"For the Web" utilize the API outside of the Facebook interface. The visualization and mapping applications are a clearer example -- it looks like the creators of these applications have built separate websites to use the API.

I'm not sure what Jobster could be doing with the API exactly, but overall, it appears that your Facebook information would be used and displayed on their site rather than on Facebook.
posted by sellout at 11:29 AM on May 30, 2007

The first incarnation of the Facebook development API required the API to be used from an external site. For example, you could create www.mapfacebookfriends.com and let users log into your site using their Facebook credentials and then import their Facebook information into your site.

The new Facebook "Platform" allows sites to inject HTML code directly into the Facebook interface. To separate these new sites and the old sites that only use the API externally, they've created the "For the Web" section.
posted by null terminated at 11:34 AM on May 30, 2007