Platform Updates: Operation Developer Love

March 7, 2012ByYasser Shohoud

This week, we announced improvements to Facebook Platform that let users add friends and location information to posts made from within your apps, an updated Open Graph Submission flow, an enhanced Auth Dialog and updates to permissions, and the [AT&T and Facebook Mobile App Hackathon on May 4th](https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2012/03/01/announcing-the-at-t

facebook-mobile-app-hackathon-in-palo-alto/). At GDC, we hosted a Facebook Developer Day where we shared best practices for Arcade games and announced expanding distribution for Scores and Achievements.

European Incentive Program

We are introducing a new incentive program designed to reward developers that drive a high volume of Credits transactions in Europe. Any developer that drives more than $100K USD in sales to European Union customers in a given quarter will be rewarded with an additional 3% related to those sales. We hope this incentive encourages developers to continue building, localizing and marketing apps that engage our European users.

The program is effective starting January 1, 2012, and the payment for January 1 to March 31, 2012 will be made at the end of April. This program will be evaluated quarterly and may or may not be renewed.

Platform Overview for Developers

We partnered with Pluralsight to provide an online course aimed at developers new to Facebook Platform. The course introduces the Platform’s main components, provides code samples and links to relevant tools and docs that you will need as you build your first Facebook app.

Platform Policy Update

Three revisions were made to the Facebook Platform Policies on Tuesday, March 7, 2012:

We removed our policy which prohibited Page Apps from hosting media that played automatically without a user’s interaction.
We revised our Mobile Web App policy to make it clear that Mobile Web Apps running within a Facebook iOS app may only use iOS approved payment methods and may not reference, use, or otherwise encourage use of Facebook Credits and other non-iOS payment methods.
We included a reminder that, if applicable, developers must be sure to comply with the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), and obtain any opt-in consent necessary from users so that user data subject to the VPPA may be shared on Facebook.

Removed App Profile Pages

This week, we removed App Profile Pages. Links to App Profile Pages will now redirect to the app. You can still create a Facebook Page to manage the community for your app in the Dev App (see the Advanced section). We previously announced that we would remove App Profile Pages on February 1, 2012 and displayed a banner with a migration link to App Profile Page Admins. We also posted a reminder on February 7, 2012.

Upcoming Breaking Changes on April 1, 2012

1. Removing support to claim Domains using Page ID

We will be deprecating the ability to claim domains with a Page ID. The recommended option for claiming domains is with an App ID or User ID and existing domains that have been claimed will continue to work fine. After claiming domains, owners are able to view insights or run Domain Sponsored Stories. Documentation for the domain claiming flow is updated here.

2. Making deprecate SDK repositories private

We will make the Python and C# SDK repositories on GitHub private. These repositories are deprecated and may not work as expected due to changes in our auth system.

Please refer to the Platform Roadmap for more info.