Introducing Graph API v2.9

The Graph API serves an average of 1.2 trillion API requests per day and powers some of Facebook's most popular products including Messenger and Instagram. In the newest version of the Graph API (v2.9), we're announcing features that simplify development, making it even easier to build apps and experiences with Facebook.

Places Graph

We're providing free access to over 140 million places around the world, the same data that powers Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. We've created Search, Current Place, and Place Information endpoints, so you can find places relevant to your users and provide helpful information about each location. The Places Graph ties query limits to the size of your customer base and is integrated with the Facebook SDK so that it's easy to get started and scale quickly. Visit our product page to learn more.

Enhanced URL Engagement Counts

With this URL Node improvement, we've expanded the types of engagement metrics you can view for any URL on the web. These are now split into four distinct counts: reactions, comments, shares, and comments plugin. You'll be able to see engagement counts for your URLs as they are used across Facebook.

Video API

We're introducing new endpoints for the Crossposted Videos feature. A crossposted video is a video reused in multiple posts without having to share or upload them again. Crossposting videos can occur within the same Page or between Pages that have established a crossposting relationship. The new APIs support identifying and modifying crossposting relationships between Pages and modifying crossposting permissions for specific videos.

Updates to Webhooks

Webhooks is Facebook's subscription-based push service for apps. We've added versioning so developers can opt-in to new Webhooks features as they become available. You can specify the version from the Webhooks product tab in the app dashboard, where you can also send sample updates for testing purposes. You can even test updates with a version that's different than your current subscription to assist in upgrading to future versions. Furthermore, User topic updates can include additional relevant fields to reduce the need to fetch them from the Graph API. Check out our documentation detailing these upgrades.

Connecting with people across your app and Messenger Bot

With a new API endpoint, you can now connect a Facebook customer from your app to your Messenger Bot to create better customer experiences across these two channels.

Read-After-Write Improvements

The Graph API now supports Read-After-Write API calls. You no longer have to make a separate call to read an object after writing it. This feature works on any request that creates or updates an object. Simply specify a fields parameter to indicate which fields should be returned in the response, just as you would do on a read request. This works in every version of the Graph API.

Page Insights

We're updating the Page Insights endpoint. You can now query Page Insights to get aggregated daily minutes viewed for all videos on a Page. In addition, Page activity such as post comments and shares is now available in Facebook Analytics, allowing you to measure your audience's interactions with your Page alongside their other activity on your website, app, and more.

Marketing API

We're introducing many new features to help developers leverage the power of the Marketing API. We have enhanced features for Ads Creation and Management, Dynamic Ads, and Targeting.

For a full list of the Graph API v2.9 changes, please read our changelog and don't forget to take advantage of our API Upgrade Tool to find out if your app will be impacted by any version changes. You can learn more about how our API versions work and our two-year stability commitment guarantee.

We'd also like to invite you to join us at our Graph API v2.9 Q&A session on May 2, 2017 if you'd like to ask our team questions.

You can expect the next Graph API release to be announced this summer, and as always we look forward to connecting with you via the Facebook Developer Community group.