Welcome back to the Facebook Demo Q&A Series. Today let’s welcome Vancouverite Rob Cottingham (Social Signal) – the creative mind behind Green Gifts.
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about your Green Gifts Facebook app?
Rob Cottingham: Developed for BC Hydro, Green Gifts allows users to send free sustainability-themed virtual gifts to their friends. Each gift includes a 64×64-pixel icon, a personal message and a practical Power Smart conservation tip.
Q: What’s the Facebook advantage? How is your Green Gifts Facebook app different from a plain old web application/widget? How does it tap into the social network?
Rob Cottingham: Judging by the number of users identifying with the Vancouver and Kelowna networks alone, Facebook has well over half a million BC users. And they’re primed for participation: partly because of the culture of Facebook, and partly because of the proliferation of applications since Facebook launched its API. Of course, the API itself is very well-designed for participation, so that made it extra-appealing for us.
We’re taking an approach not unlike the way you might create a small-scale hydro project: you see where the water’s flowing, and stick a turbine into it. We identified early on that virtual gift-giving is huge on Facebook, so we made it really easy for people to have the fun of sending free gifts, while they also helped spread the word about conservation.
Q: Inside Green Gifts: What languages (PHP, Java, Ruby, etcetera), libraries and frameworks have you used to develop your Facebook app?
Rob Cottingham: Our developer used the time-honored team of Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP.
Thanks Rob Cottingham. Check back tomorrow for the second part in the Q&A disussing tips, tricks and advice on developing, designing and marketing Facebook apps and more.
Interested in more? Join us at Vancouver’s second Facebook Developer Garage and first in the new year in late January 2008.
