New Viral Channel: Facebook Launches Chat Invite API for Applications

March 5th, 2009

By Justin Smith

facebook platform developers Facebook has just released a new chat invite API that allows developers to let users send application invitations to their friends via Facebook Chat.

Here’s how it works:

After embedding the fb:chat-invite FBML element, users will see a list of their Facebook friends that are online and available to chat. (Like with Facebook’s multi-friend selector, developers can choose which friends should or shouldn’t appear in this list.)
Users select a friend to send a Facebook chat invite to.
The recipient receives the invite through a Facebook chat message that pops up on their screen.

fbchatinvite

This is a new viral channel that should convert very well for developers due to:

The prominence of invite delivery. Unlike regular application invites, which go into the general requests inbox, chat invites pop up on the recipient’s screen instantly.
The social pressure to respond to chat messages in real time. If your friend wants to talk to you and knows you’re online, it’s awkward to ignore them. The same dynamic will apply to application chat invites.

The new API should both make for new kinds of interactions in applications and lead to application growth. Now, users can invite their friends to play live games or participate in a discussion much more easily than before. For example, check out Pet Society’s “Live Gifts” in the screenshot above.

If you use iframes, Facebook says you can wrap this tag in some FBJS. Facebook also says there will be an XFBML version available soon.

fbchatinvite2

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7 Responses to “New Viral Channel: Facebook Launches Chat Invite API for Applications”

Jakob Keller Says:
March 5th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
It’s really easy to implement! Here’s one of the first apps to use chat invites:
apps.facebook.com/friend_score/index.php?view=invite&ref=insidefb
Jakob Keller Says:
March 5th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Sorry, this link works:

http://apps.facebook.com/friend_score/index.php?view=invite&ref=insidefb
New Channel For App Invites, Facebook Chat « Social Media News Says:
March 5th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
[...] New Viral Channel: Facebook Launches Chat Invite API for Applications. Tweet [...]
Albert Lai Says:
March 5th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Justin, wish you could have made it out for the post workshop dinner… had this tid bit of news a few weeks ago.

Gareth/FB “Games Guy” had a great conversation with me at our private Kontagent Social Games Workshop about 3 weeks ago… missed my one “amateur blogger” news break. =)

This is a fantastic viral channel for developers that want to work synchronous real time experiences on Facebook — which many are starting to move towards with their social game designs.

The issue of spam is relatively easy to control. Just throttle down abusers with notification limits based on user feedback. Facebook has done a commendable job of balancing viral channel abuse over time. Its not perfect, but currently its better than every other social networking platform.

–—
albert lai
kontagent facebook analytics
http://www.kontagent.com
CyberNetikz Says:
March 5th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Its really a great news for us who are developing facebook application. We can give more features to the user to make life easy
Jessy Says:
March 10th, 2009 at 2:04 am
Hi All

Is that really working?

I have a script error warning me that

“chatInvite is not defined
[Break on this error] <fb:ch…er’).setInnerFBML(chatInvite); ”

Any one got this and what is the remedy
Industry Perspectives: Trends in Social Gaming Platforms with Playfish COO Sebastian de Halleux Says:
May 25th, 2009 at 9:30 am
[...] Facebook launched chat invites, a feature largely requested by the social gaming community. Do you think platforms like Facebook [...]