Inside Facebook

Following CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote speech today, head of Facebook Platform Product Marketing Ben Lingis speaking on Facebook’s guiding principles for Platform applications.

- Facebook has 3 guiding principles behind what we consider furthering our vision for Platform:

1. Meaningful - It’s gotta be social, useful, expressive and engaging.
2. Trustworthy – It must be secure, respectful, and transparent.
3. Well-designed – Great applications are clean, fast, and robust.

We encourage developers to embody these principles as they build the next generation of Facebook applications.

- We’re striving to listen to developers more as well, it’s something we can improve on this year:

1. Partner more closely with developers. There have been over 70 developer garages around the world, and you can expect to see more active participation in thd developer forums. In addition, we’re setting up a partner management program to communicate our product roadmap to developers.
2. Keep ecosystem safe for users, fair for developers. We launched the platform with a pretty hands off approach, which led to overwhelming distribution to a fault. Then, we starting limiting developer access to communication channels. We’re working on creating more programs to help developers.

- If you’re a developer interested in building on the Facebook Platform, we provide a great set of tools and partnerships – like Microsoft for developer tools, and Joyent and Amazon for scaling your apps. Today, we’re also launching a redesigned developer site.

- Today, we’re also pleased to announce our initial recipients of fbFund grants. Initial winners include: ConnectedWeddings, CourseFeed by Classtop, GoalCamp, HotBerry, J2Play, LuckyCal, MyListo, Podclass, Trazzler, and Zimride Carpool App.

We’re also launching a new program today that users will get to vote on, so we encourage you to apply.

- We’re also launching new programs today to help increase user trust in applications:

1. Application Verification. Users will trust apps more (apps will get a badge). Developers will get more visibility within Facebook comunication channels.
2. Great Apps. These are apps that embody all 10 guiding principles, and help advance the mission of Facebook. Great apps must have a minimum user base and a strong track record of adherence to Platform policies. Users will get a more integrated experience, and more content. Developers will get increased visibility – will appear more like native Facebook applications. We’re excited to announce two inaugural partners: iLike and Causes.

We hope to establish a fair and safe ecosystem for application developers, with fair and consistent application for all developers.