It has been an oft-lamented fact of the Facebook Platform thus far in its life that, in order to use all but the most simple of Javascript functionality–the cornerstone of the AJAX technology so loved these days–Facebook app developers have had to host their canvas pages in an iframe, thus foregoing the use of Facebook’s convenient FBML. There has been, in other words, a trade-off between functionality and the ease of designing an app that integrates well with a user’s Facebook experience.

It looks like that trade-off will no longer be a problem, as Facebook has just released to all developers the ability to use their (beta-version) “Facebook Javascript”, or FBJS. As you can see for yourself at the FBJS documentation on the developers’ wiki, Facebook has put a lot of engineering time into creating a coherent API that allows devs to use pretty much the full power of Javascript within their applications on Facebook’s own pages, while keeping Facebook itself free from the damaging effects of buggy or malicious third-party Javascript. For those security reasons, using FBJS will take a little getting used to when writing complicated scripts, but the Javascript language itself remains unchanged, including the use of prototypes and objects.

This move gives app devs more power than previously possible, since FBJS can also be run on a user’s profile page itself, whereas before this was not allowed. Still, Facebook requires that a profile viewer first interact in some way (a mouse click, for example) with an application before any of that application’s particular FBJS events can fire. Thus, annoying behavior by apps the viewer doesn’t care about is prevented. I haven’t seen it in print yet, but I also imagine that many browser-wide Javascript actions (such as popping up a browser dialog box) will be disabled.

The facet of FBJS which should bring the most change (or hype) is the opening up of a Facebook-style Javascript DOM and several powerful AJAX functions which allow devs to take their AJAX operations into their own hands. Previously, Facebook only allowed a static “Mock AJAX” functionality which felt slow and cumbersome. They give an example of their FBJS AJAX object in action, and it seems much more promising than its less-evolved older brother.

In their granting devs the ability to use more powerful tools in a language most of them already understand, Facebook continues to edge its way (somewhat slyly, perhaps) towards becoming the premier (or most attentively-followed, anyway) environment for developing socially-aware internet applications.

[tags]facebook,apps,javascript,fbjs,fbml,ajax,developer,facebook-apps[/tags]

By now, Facebook’s penetration of American Internet life is well known…

• 90% of US college students have Facebook accounts, and half of them login every day.
• Professionals are increasingly migrating their professional networks from LinkedIn to Facebook.
• Facebook is increasingly replacing email as the default communications platform for informal messages between students and non-urgent messages between professionals.

However, less attention has been paid to Facebook’s growing international presence. While other social networks have dominant leadership positions across Europe, Australia, and Asia, Facebook’s penetration is on the rise — at least in the English speaking world…

• 11.4 million, or 33% of the Canadian population, has joined Facebook as of June 2007, making up over 10% of the total Facebook population.
• In Britain, London has become the largest geographic network (surpassing Toronto), now with over 880,000 users, representing about 10% of the city’s population.
• Facebook’s Australian population grew by 80% in June alone, while MySpace Australia grew 10%.

However, one glaring omission is inhibiting Facebook’s growth elsewhere: it’s only available in English. Only 50,000 Germans use Facebook (about 0.06% of a country of 80 million), and Asian numbers are nowhere to be seen. As a result, dozens of regionally-tailored knock-offs have sprung up in countries like China and Turkey in an attempt to beat Facebook to the punch.

But Facebook will be launching their first major localization initiative soon:

Zuckerberg: We haven’t translated the site yet, but that’s something we’re working on and it should be done soon. What we’re doing is pretty broadly applicable to people in all different age groups and demographics and places around the world.

Facebook will likely make their first push across western Europe (perhaps releasing Facebook translations in German, Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese), though the cultural divide that Zuckerberg alludes to is much bigger across the Pacific. More specifics soon.

[tags]facebook,international,local,language[/tags]