I’m Reading - Facebook App Nite Q&A w/ Garth Shoemaker

Welcome back to the Facebook App Nite Q&A Series. Today let’s welcome Garth Shoemaker talking about “I’m Reading” on Facebook.

The fact is that there are many shady approaches out there for promoting your app. You are going to have to make a choice about whether you want to embrace these approaches or not. If you do, you are sacrificing some user satisfaction for pure growth. If you ignore them, then you can focus on providing real value to your users. Personally, I am worried that these approaches have already turned many users away from apps, but hope that in the future quality will come out on top.

MyBus - Facebook App Nite Q&A w/ John Boxall (Handi Mobility)

Welcome back to the Facebook App Nite Q&A Series. Today let’s welcome John Boxall from Handi Mobility talking about MyBus.

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about MyBus on Facebook?

John Boxall: MyBus for Facebook was originally developed to complement our TransLink text messaging system (also called MyBus!) With MyBus for Facebook we try to make transit information accessible to the widest audience possible. The majority of Vancouver transit riders are high school and university students - and they are all on Facebook. It seemed like a natural fit.

Q: What’s the Facebook advantage? How does MyBus tap into Facebook’s social network and circle of friends?

John Boxall: The current version of MyBus doesn’t leverage the social graph - instead it simply tries to present relevant information in a relevant place. Whenever I’m going somewhere, typically the last thing I do before I go is hop on Facebook to update my status. By putting MyBus on Facebook I could do two things at once - and if it turned out I was going to miss my bus, I could surf Facebook for a few more minutes before I had to go.

Q: Inside MyBus: What languages, libraries and frameworks have you used to develop MyBus?

John Boxall: MyBus uses PHP & MySQL coupled with Propel & Memcache.

Q: Any tips and tricks or advice you can share on developing, designing or marketing Facebook apps?

John Boxall: Useful != Popular. When designing an application on Facebook you need to step back and ask yourself exactly how you will attract users. To be successful you may have to be devious. Many top apps restrict functionality until a member has invited a certain number of friends. This may seem counter intuitive but actually is could be necessary for your app to grow.

Thanks John Boxall for your time.

Join us for Vancouver’s 3rd Facebook Developer Garage and App Nite hosted at Open Web Vancouver 2008 at Canada Place on April, 15th and see more Facebook widgets live in action or sign-up for a live demo and Q&A.

Questions? Comments? Send them along to the Vancouver Ajax & Web 2.0 (3.0) Developer Forum/Mailing List. Thanks!

These Are My Kids - Facebook Q&A with Michael Fergusson and Paul Prescod (Kinzin)

Welcome back to the Facebook Demo Q&A Series. Today let’s welcome Michael Fergusson and Paul Prescod talking about “These Are My Kids” - the 2nd and latest Facebook application from Kinzin following the “Are You Normal?” hit that celebrated 1,000,000 Facebookers served sometime last year.

Viewers never need to sign up for anything, but if they are already Facebook users, they can take advantage of Facebook’s existing infrastructure of invitations and notifications.

You need to have a lot of extra capacity available because the traffic can come in waves depending on how you are ranked in the application directory. The safest way to be ready for extra capacity is to use load balancing, memcached and carefully selected database indexes.

The Snow Report - Facebook Q&A with Jeremy Holland and Dean Halford (MOK Agency) - Best of the West Facebook Awards Nominee

Welcome back to the Facebook Demo Q&A Series. Today let’s welcome Jeremy Holland and Dean Halford from MOK Agency talking about The Snow Report.

To grow within a niche market of Facebook we knew we had to tap into the interactive elements of Facebook, setting up profiles, setting up and documenting trips, posting gear online that riders can review and most importantly providing riders something useful.

Facebook Mixx Maker (V2.0) Q&A with Jeremy Lim (Project Opus, Donat Group)

Welcome to the Facebook Demo Q&A Series. Today let’s welcome back Jeremy Lim (Project Opus, Donat Group) updating us on what’s new in Mixx Maker, what lessons Team Mixx Maker has learned on Facebook, insight on sharing music online, and more.

Mixx Maker and MixxMaker.com are both running on the same Drupal install, so they share the same database. Because of that, they both share a mutual blog and forum. Plus, we can also aggregate all Mixxs for display on MixxMaker.com.

Not reinventing the wheel can be a good thing. Mixtapes worked, so Mixx Maker works. The concept of contextual music is tried and true, and people don’t have to relearn the idea – they just know. Personality pieces are also good. A Mixx’s theme and the music tied to it speaks volumes of a person, which does cater to the ego.

Facebook Eat-A-Rama Q&A with Sebastian Troen (ActiveState) - Best of the West Facebook Awards Nominee

Welcome back to the Facebook Demo Q&A Series. Today let’s welcome Sebastian Troen talking about Eat-A-Rama - the latest Facebook application from the Social Networking Team at ActiveState following up on Up4 - ActiveState’s 1st entry into the social networking world.

Join us for Vancouver’s 2nd Facebook Developer (& Designer) Garage and 1st in the new year and see Eat-A-Rama and other Best of the West Facebook Awards Nominees live in action at the Vancouver Film School Theatre.

Identify the potential revenue sources for a project up front. With Up4 the idea was rather general and so we wanted something that was more focused on a specific area and had clearer revenue options. There’s a huge industry around dining that gives us plenty of options with Eat-A-Rama over and above advertising.

Facebook Music Gifts Q&A with Mike Hrycyk (Digital Kiosk Technologies)

Welcome back to the Facebook Demo Q&A Series. Today let’s welcome Mike Hrycyk (Digital Kiosk Technologies) talking about the Best of the West 2007 Nominee Music Gifts.

Don’t get too complex. Facebookers need to be able to tell what it does right away so they can dive in and have fun in the shortest time possible.

Facebook BC Event Q&A with Ahmad Wasfi

Welcome back to the Facebook Demo Q&A Series. Today let’s welcome Ahmad Wasfi talking about the Best of the West 2007 Nominee BC Event.

The Facebook Markup Language (FBML) also offers an elegant way of designing user interfaces. The usual concerns of browser compatibility and screen resolution can soon be part of the past.

Facebook Funny Jokes Q&A with Geoff Peters - Part II

Welcome back to episode two in the Facebook Demo Q&A Series with Vancouverite Geoff Peters talking about the Best of the West 2007 Nominee Funny Jokes.

One question I still have about the Facebook platform is how to monetize my app. Contributing to the Facebook community is great, but at this stage I’d rather spend my limited recreational programming time on projects that give back the most bang for the buck.

Facebook Funny Jokes Q&A with Geoff Peters - Part I

Welcome back to the Facebook Demo Q&A Series. Today let’s welcome Vancouverite Geoff Peters talking about the Best of the West 2007 Nominee Funny Jokes.

It’s fascinating how Facebook profiles are a new kind of “online identity” that is becoming totally mainstream. The way a profile is filled out represents how a person wants to look to others (at least on Facebook), much like how people choose what clothes they wear and their overall image in the real world.