John Maver and Cappy Popp will be holding a workshop on "Facebook: Beyond The Basics" at SES Toronto 2011 on June 14, 2011.

In this session we'll cover some of the details behind the platform that's quickly becoming the most powerful, important, and rapidly-evolving web presence in the world. We assume you know the basics, so we won't bother with them! Here we'll discuss more advanced topics such as: what you never knew about the Facebook Like button (and should), EdgeRank and why you must understand it, and Facebook Insights you should be tracking (but aren't!) If you need to understand Facebook more thoroughly for your business or pleasure don't miss it.

See more details here - Facebook: Beyond The Basics

In late January Facebook finally added support for HTTPS, allowing users to browse the site securely. HTTPS provides a combination of the HTTP and SSL protocols, enabling encrypted communication between a user's computer and a web server. Using HTTPS to access the site - though undoubtedly slower - protects users from sniffing attacks on public networks. Sniffing attacks have become a real problem in the last year with the introduction of free, open-source tools like Firesheep. PC World has even published a how-to guide to using the tool to hijack Facebook. So the feature is long overdue.

Thus the topic of this post.

Uncheck This!

One of our clients, AVG Technologies, has partnered with Zynga to offer FarmVille players an exclusive AVG Biplane with purchase of AVG PC TuneUp for 66% off. So far, AVG is one of very few companies to offer these sponsored in-game purchases.

The campaign works by prompting FarmVille users when they load the game to purchase AVG PC TuneUp in return for the AVG Biplane, which offers 3 Instant Grow applications. Once the purchase is complete, a message will appear in FarmVille congratulating the user on the new AVG Biplane and lets them place it on their farm. Farmers can then click on the AVG Biplane and choose Apply Instant Grow to have it fly over their farm like a cropduster and enable all crops to be harvested.

To promote this offer on the AVG Facebook Page, we are doing the following:

1. Adding a section on the Community tab, which is set as the default landing tab for non-Fans. This means that all first time visitors to the page will learn about the offer. Existing Fans always go to the Wall.
2. Updating the Profile picture with a call to action. This is very important, because this picture is visible on all tabs, including the Wall. Notice also that the offer is place in the middle of the picture so that it is above the fold.
3. Creating a series of Status Updates that help teach users about the benefits of AVG PC TuneUp. As a newly launched product, many of the millions of AVG customers and Fans may not know about its features, and it is a great chance to answer questions.
4. Encouraging users to post pictures of their farms. Some people do some amazing decorating and go way beyond harvesting! AVG Fans are generally pretty active on the Page, so we expect to get many very interesting farms.
5. Running a set of Facebook Ads targeting users who value PC Performance and FarmVille players. Using some narrow demographic targets, we can get pretty good results and quickly validate messaging.

The Facebook campaign is also supplemented by AVG's other social media efforts such as blogs, YouTube videos and Twitter outreach.

This is a very interesting campaign to be part of from end to end, and AVG is already seeing the results. You can find out more about the offer in this blog post.

Update: Inside Facebook is featuring the deal on their website today as a Featured Facebook Campaign.

As part of his article series for the Japanese magazine Web Site Expert, writer Bart Eisenberg interviewed John Maver and Cappy Popp about the state of Facebook application development and related technical books. Their book, Essential Facebook Development: Build Successful Applications for the Facebook Platform, covered how to create applications from end to end.

Read the full article in English here - Facebook Application Developers Face a Moving Target

Join Cappy Popp, Co-Founder of Thought Labs, as he  covers an overview of the platform (where we have been/where we are going), a detailed chat about the "Like" feature (and whether or not it has been successful), privacy changes, the long tail of Facebook and how social plugins impact you. The webinar begins at 2:00pm EST on July 28, 2010.

Find out more at: The Awareness Facebook Social Marketing Toolkit.

Cappy Popp was recently quoted in an article in PC World titled "What Is Your Facebook Data Worth?" by Narasu Rebbapragada. Cappy talked about the massive amount of information that users willingly supply to Facebook in their profiles. The article goes on to talk about the newest privacy issues and hacks. You can read the full article here.

Related articles

• Privacy issues a big risk to Facebook's success (thestar.com)

Last week, Jaime Tedford and I talked about the Facebook Open Graph and how businesses could benefit from it. It was well attended, with lots of great questions from the audience. Here are the slides we used:

John Maver will be presenting, along with Jaime Tedford of Brand Networks on the recent Facebook Open Graph announcement and how businesses can take advantage of it.

The event will be held on June 10th at Northeastern University, starting at 8:30 am.

Facebook has yet again changed the game with theannouncement of the next version of the Facebook Platform.   Facebook Open Graph, the replacement for Facebook Connect, will position people at the center of the web in a way never seen before.   This new platform provides the widgets and tools that provide a quick opportunity to make businesses more viral and reach more potential customers on the web.   With the new features of Open Graph, Facebook is now able to do more than just connect people - they are giving meaning to these connections. The Open Graph, or "social graph," is how Facebook describes the connections from people to what they like and as part of that, Facebook users will see and feel more social and personalized experiences.

The implications of this new "social web" platform are expansive.   In the week since the launch, more than 50,000 websites have implemented social plug-ins, already enabling those social experiences.    And many facets of the platform are already under debate; for example, with "Likes" now being essential social links that Google and other search engines won't have full access to, how does this change search engine optimization as we know it today?

This platform affects everyone, whether we're marketers trying to understand the new features for our clients (or our company), or whether we're citizens wondering how this affects our privacy.  So, if you're excited about how these changes could make Internet experiences easier and more social, or if you're concerned about the effects this change has on your privacy, you don't want to miss this event as we discuss the full realm of Facebook Open Graph.  Talking points will include:

• The difference between Open Graph and Connect
• Why the new version of the Facebook Platform is about more than just connecting people
• What new features are available for enabling websites to become instantly social - and best practices for leveraging these opportunities
• Privacy in the new model, especially with the instant personalization features

To register, visit - http://www.mitx.org//events/2231.cfm?register=1

Today, I was part of a panel discussion on Facebook Connect . Here is a quick summary and key points:

Panelists

1.    (Moderator) John J. Maver, Jr. - Co-Founder and Principal at Thought Labs
2.    Dan Abdinoor - Developer, Hubspot;
3.    Leah Busque - Founder, RunMyErrand Inc;
4.    Meagan Ellis - PR Account Manger, Kel & Partners;
5.    Justin Levy - General Manager, New Marketing Labs;

Benefits of Facebook Connect

1. Single Sign-on - users can quickly join any Connected website using just their Facebook credentials
2. Identity and Privacy - users bring their interests, information and privacy settings with them. When they are updated on Facebook, they are updated everywhere. This is in part due to Facebook not allowing Connected sites to store a user's Facebook information locally.
3. Relationships - users bring their friend relationships with them to the site and are able to interact with them on Connected sites. Connect also makes it easy for users to invite and find their Facebook friends.
4. Social Distribution - actions taken on the site such as sharing, status updates, comments and other actions can create Feed stories that are posted to Facebook stream, enabling rapid spread of information with links back to the site.
5. Facebook API - Connect is built on top of the Facebook JavaScript Library, enabling the creation of even deeper integration and access to the Facebook API

Good examples of Connect

1. The Share button - with one line of code, you can enable users to share links, pages and other information with their Facebook friends
2. Widgets
a. The Fan Box helps get people to go become Fans of your Facebook Public Profile.
b. The Comment Box enables commenting to be added to any page quickly with user management and posting back to the Facebook stream
c. The Live Stream Box enables realtime discussion on any page with all of a user's friends. This can scale to millions of concurrent users
3. Feed stories - Digg, Netflix, iTunes and other sites can let users share content such as movies watched or key URL's via Feed stories/
4. Plugins - WordPress and Disqus offer built in Facebook Connect integration for blog comments, along with supporting other login methods
5. Profile Information - The Fight Club site pulls a user's information and pictures to make the content more real
6. Status and News access - TweetDeck and FriendFeed enable users to set their status or read their news stream right from the application, enabling users to get everything in one place
7. Relationships - UrbanSpoon, VLane, and Joost show what a user's friends are interested in to help make better decisions from trusted connections
8. Single Sign-on - JibJab.com makes personalization easy by signing into the site in just a few clicks using the Connect login button.

The best integrations are those that are simple and use Connect to enhance the site's natural value to the user.

Results of Integration

1. JibJab - got 1.5 million users over 5 years the old way, and other 1.5 million users in 5 months via Facebook Connect
2. XBox Live - in 24 hours after launch, over 2 million Xbox Live user hooked up their Facebook accounts
3. Huffington Post - Added Connect in August and now Connect accounts for 15% of their monthly comments
4. CitySearch.com - "Since implementing Facebook Connect, daily registrations have tripled, and connected users are twice as engaged as users not using Facebook Connect. 94% of users who write reviews share those reviews back on Facebook, where 70% of their friends who see the review click on it, and travel back to Citysearch.com."

Concerns

1. Privacy - Facebook controls this via their standard privacy controls. Users can disconnect or prevent sites from having access. Facebook also strongly polices privacy issues.
2. Staying up to date - Make sure to follow the changing Terms of Service and other policies to see what may affect your integration
3. Communication - collect a user's email address up front to enable you to communication with them when they are not on the site. Facebook Connect does not automatically enable this, although this may change in the future.
4. Additional Information -  collect user information only as needed and try to incentivize rather than require.
5. Account Management - integrating existing accounts with Connect can take some thinking and preparation. Spend the time to make it as seemless as possible.
6. Easy of Use - make sure that the workflow for a user to get logged in and using the site is very simple. Users expect it.

Getting Started

1. Use the simple things like the Share button, the Fan Box and other widgets for a quick start
2. Look at Facebook Connect Public Profile and go through all the examples. See how the workflows they use might fit into your site.
3. Enable Login with Connect and get it right before adding advanced functionality
4. Add deeper integration with the social graph ( a user's friend relationships )

Resources

1. The Facebook Connect Profile
2. The Facebook Developer and Platform blogs
3. The Developer Wiki
4. Blogs - Mashable, AllFacebook, InsideFacebook, TechCrunch
5. Our Book - Essential Facebook Development

Brian Rinaldi has also posted his summary of the event on his blog.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions about Facebook Connect from a strategy or implementation perspective. We would be glad to help!

Our book, Essential Facebook Development, is now available.

The synopsis:
With more than 300 million active users, Facebook is the world’s #1 social networking platform. But developing successful Facebook applications presents unique challenges, both technical and nontechnical. Now, two of the world’s most experienced Facebook developers show you exactly how to meet those challenges. Essential Facebook Development offers insider guidance and up-to-the-minute best practices for the entire application lifecycle: design, coding, testing, distribution, post-launch monitoring, metrics, and even application marketing.

Using extensive real-world examples, John Maver and Cappy Popp reveal why some Facebook applications succeed brilliantly while others fail. Next, they walk through building a complete application using every major component of the Facebook platform. Maver and Popp thoroughly cover Facebook’s most important new features, including Facebook Connect, and provide extensive information available nowhere else–from measuring application success to monetization. Coverage includes

• Thorough introductions to Facebook’s current architecture, integration points, and development technologies
• Discussion of successful Facebook applications–and what makes them successful
• What every developer must know about Facebook’s Terms of Service
• Creating an effective application infrastructure
• Creating canvas pages with FBML and IFrames
• Adding support for profiles, application tabs, and messaging
• Incorporating JavaScript into Facebook applications with FBJS
• Integrating Facebook into external sites with Facebook Connect and the Facebook JavaScript Client Library
• Debugging techniques for Facebook applications
• Spreading, monitoring, and tuning applications

You can purchase the book from the following sellers and more:

Stay up to date on what is happening with Facebook development and the book by becoming a Fan on its Facebook Public Profile, subscribing to the blog on the book's website, or following the book's updates on Twitter.