Facebook Graph API Now Supports In-Game Groups

The past week has been relatively slow in the world of Facebook development. When that happens, there’s a good chance that the weekly Operation Developer Love update will be bursting at the seam...
Facebook Graph API Now Supports In-Game Groups
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  • The past week has been relatively slow in the world of Facebook development. When that happens, there’s a good chance that the weekly Operation Developer Love update will be bursting at the seams with new features and updates. Facebook didn’t disappoint as this week’s update is full of new features that developers will want to start trying out.

    The Graph API takes on another function this week as Facebook introduces groups for games and apps. Developers can use the Graph API to build up groups around their games. Much like regular Facebook groups or the more traditional clan in online gaming, game developers can invite strangers to join together in a group to work towards a common goal. It could potentially solve one of the major problems with social games – not having enough friends all playing the same game to unlock higher tier rewards.

    Like most new additions, Facebook is rolling groups out as a beta to all apps and games in App Center. More work will be put into it over time, but developers will want to help Facebook work out the kinks so both parties can provide the best experience possible to end users. Interested developers can get started now by reading the documentation.

    Before you get into Open Graph groups, developers first have to prove to Facebook that it can handle the responsibility of Open Graph. Developers can now upload screenshots of their Open Graph usage during the Open Graph Action submission process. This will help Facebook expedite the submission process by being able to see that new developers understand the Guidelines and responsibilities that come with Open Graph development.

    Fans of Facebook’s JavaScript SDK are in for a treat this week as there is now a debug version of the SDK now available. Facebook says that it’s loaded un-minified and contains stricter type checking. It will hopefully provide more accurate data on errors when developers are debugging their apps. You can see more here.

    Facebook’s Platform Policy page has been updated to address use of its social plugins. Developers who use Facebook’s own social plugins “must not sell or purchase placement or participate in any like exchange program.” You can read more.

    The Facebook for WordPress Plugin has been updated with improved stability, individual settings pages, custom poste type support, and custom post status support. Version 1.1 of the WordPress plugin requires WordPress 3.3 or newer. You can read more here.

    Facebook also announced today that all North American users are now being moved to the HTTPS protocol. The rest of the world will be following shortly. The move to HTTPS will make the site more secure for everybody.

    As always, Facebook rounds out its post with the weekly bug report. The social network reports that 236 bugs were reported this week, and 11 bugs were fixed. Thirty-eight bugs were accepted for further review. You can check out the full bug fix list at the blog post.

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