Some social gamers are going to miss SuperPoke Pets. But in Silicon Valley, social developer Slide will be remembered for how it saw the opportunity in social apps early on, and for how it doggedly and sometimes successfully adapted as social platforms changed.

It will also be remembered for how it didn’t quite hit the key part of the trend at the right time as the industry evolved. Zynga instead cornered a big portion of social gaming, and is now heading towards an initial public offering worth billions.

After being acquired by Google in 2010 for more than $182 million, Slide initially seemed poised for a second wind (or more like a fourth wind) helping to lead the creation of a product to go against Facebook. Instead, some of the team continued running SuperPoke and other apps — it still has nearly half a million monthly active users on Facebook — or worked on new ones like photo-sharing mobile app Photovine. Those efforts were more on the peripheral of Google+ products, if not in competition with them. Tellingly, Slide’s games weren’t even included in its games launch earlier this month.

So, it’s not all that surprising that Slide announced to the company yesterday that it would be shutting down almost all of its apps.

AllThingsD, which broke the story, also reported that founder Max Levchin is leaving, and so is up-and-coming product leader Jared Fliesler, who will join fellow former Slide executive Keith Rabois at mobile payments company Square.

This still isn’t a failed acquisition in the way that other recent big ones have been, like Cisco’s closure of its Flip device line. Most Slide employees are staying to work in other parts of the acquirer, and we’ve heard that attrition to date has already been very low. And because Google is busy hiring anyway, including for its game platforms and social products, these 100-some veteran employees are still in a good position to make an impact.

A Look Back at Slide’s Products Over the Years

The company began life as a desktop photo browser app back in 2005, but quickly transitioned to take advantage of MySpace. It built an online photo app of sorts that users could embed in their profiles. To get a sense of how early this was in the industry, MySpace sometimes viewed third-party developers as threats and at various points tried to block their embeds.

> Continue reading on Inside Social Games.

Miramax film studios released a multi-title movie rental app this week that lets users stream any of 20 films for 48 hours in exchange for 30 Facebook Credits. Users can also earn behind the scenes clips by assigning friend’s to roles in films via wall posts.

The Miramax eXperience app, powered by Ooyala’s video technology, lacks some of the advanced social features such as timed comments and scene sharing found in Milyoni’s film rental app. However, the destination app is special because it aggregates a catalog of films rather than only serving one, and could become a model copied by other content owners including TV networks and record labels as well as other film studios.

The film studio originally planned to host the video on demand storefront on Miramax.com, but CEO Mike Lang told PaidContent the Facebook app was an attempt fish where the fish are. The app is now available with 20 films in the US, and 10 in the UK and Turkey. Purchased films can also be watched through the browser of an iPad or on Google TV. Eventually, Miramax will look to sell fil

Apps allowing users to pay for access to digital media content have sprung up this year, with Milyoni pioneering the space with its Social Theater app for The Dark Knight in March. Credits-for-content apps appeal to media producers because they allow them to generate a direct return on their social media investment rather than just conducting institutional marketing.

Milyoni publishes differently skinned versions of it’s app for each film reducing the likelihood of a single user making multiple purchases. However, the new social features in Social Theater 2.0, including the abilities publish video clips of currently watched scenes to the news feed and leave comments pegged to specific moments in a film, are superior to those in Miramax eXperience.

When users first visit Miramax’s app, they can slide between 20 popular films from the studio’s catalog including Pulp Fiction and Good Will Hunting. Rentals cost 30 Facebook Credits, or $3, per film for 30 days with a 48 hour streaming period. These are almost identical terms to Milyoni’s app. The Ooyala video player runs smoothly, automatically optimizing for definition though users can also select video quality level.

While watching users can share the app via Like and Send buttons, or by leaving a comment and opting to post it to Facebook. However, the stories posted by these social plugins aren’t likely to attract many users since they don’t cite the currently viewed film and therefore appear quite boring. The addition of live chat or timed comments, scene sharing, and richer social plugin shares could significantly increase virality, and give users a reason to rent through the app rather than elsewhere.

Some of this missed opportunity for growth will likely be made up by Casting Call, Miramax eXperience’s embedded sharing app. Users are shown popular characters from Miramax films, asked to “cast” a friend in the role. A publisher dialog encourages users to share their casting selection to the friend’s wall. To comply with Facebook’s policies against incentivized sharing, users are reward with a behind-the-scenes clip of a film of their choice for casting three friends whether they publish the wall stories or not.

By taking a multi-title approach, Miramax can translate positive encounters with its app into additional sales better than standalone Facebook apps for each film. Plus, since Miramax eXperience is linked to from the Pages of all the films it serves, there’s little lose and much to gain by offering a wide variety of content in a single app. Don’t be surprised if you soon see record labels bundling music by different artists or TV networks offering a slate of their shows in aggregated Credits-for-content Facebook apps.

The new Phrases topped our list of the fastest growing Facebook applications by monthly active users this week, but since the app is not available to United States users, we couldn’t tell you exactly why. There were then a bunch of friend quiz apps and other apps publishing friendship information to the stream, photo and greeting card apps and a few more in for good measure.

The apps on our list grew from between 209,400 and 707,600 MAU, based on AppData, our data tracking service covering traffic growth for apps on Facebook. We define “emerging” applications as those that ended with between 100,000 and 1 million MAU in the past week.

Top Gainers This Week

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain,%
1.	Phrases (new)	750,211	+707,625	+1,662%
2.	Friend Report Card	861,598	+668,757	+347%
3.	Photos +	899,569	+649,566	+260%
4.	Baby & Me	675,791	+440,353	+187%
5.	SimSocial	713,789	+416,749	+140%
6.	Te Atrevez A Kontesta..!__________	882,441	+380,188	+76%
7.	胡萊三國	924,788	+349,901	+61%
8.	Kad Raya	492,401	+346,755	+238%
9.	Monster Fusion	639,409	+321,507	+101%
10.	O-Meter App Factory	581,102	+318,027	+121%
11.	Kad Ucapan dan Lagu Raya	353,470	+301,962	+586%
12.	How Happy are You Today	895,423	+297,020	+50%
13.	SlotSpot – The Premier Slots Destination	960,901	+289,910	+43%
14.	Bolesna prawda	459,065	+272,031	+145%
15.	Amazon Sweepstakes	409,289	+261,091	+176%
16.	It Girl Community	626,248	+258,437	+70%
17.	Warheiitsspiiel	765,389	+238,509	+45%
18.	Perfect Games	326,927	+220,500	+207%
19.	Vi un Fiesta.move	426,769	+213,713	+100%
20.	Animated Picture	381,127	+209,418	+122%

Phrases (new) grew by 707,600 MAU this week, as mentioned, it’s not available in the US. Then there were friend apps. Friend Report Card publishes a “report card” of your friends, tagging them in the photo, consequently growing by 668,800 MAU this week.  Te Atrevez A Kontesta grew by 380,200 MAU and is a Spanish friend quiz publishing questions and answers to the stream; the Polish version seems to be Bolesna prawda with 272,00 MAU and the German version  Warheiitsspiiel with 238,500 MAU. O-Meter App Factory is an app that grew by 318,000 MAU and is a series of applications and quizzes.

Photo apps now included Photos + with 649,600 MAU and Animated Picture that makes an animated gif for your profile photo with 209,400 MAU. Greeting card apps popular in non-US markets this week were Kad Raya with 346,800 MAU (Islam-themed greeting cards published to the stream) and Kad Ucapan dan Lagu Raya with 302,000 MAU (ditto). How Happy are You Today grew by 297,000 MAU and publishes a percentage of happiness to your stream daily and

Then there was some sort of integration with Amazon Sweepstakes that grew by 261,100 MAU and a car contest of some sorts, Vi un Fiesta.move with 213,700 MAU.

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Stay tuned next week for our look at the top weekly gainers by monthly active users on Monday, the top weekly gainers by daily active users on Wednesday, and the top emerging apps on Friday.

Facebook’s new App Ticker that is displayed on the games Canvas page and lists news of friends engaging with games will also show abbreviated versions of Sponsored Stories, Facebook’s social ad unit. Sponsored Stories bought by advertisers are now eligible to inform users about the app their friends use from within the App Ticker as well as from their regular spot in Facebook’s ads sidebar. This is currently the only way that ads are mixed into any of Facebook’s content streams

This additional placement of Sponsored Stories will improve the ability of advertisers to reach gamers, which could be especially useful for developers looking to gain new users. However, to make the ticker’s sponsored app discovery stories as appealing as possible, Facebook will need to show them about friends that users trust as wise, active gamers.

Reaching the Right Audience

Facebook released Sponsored Stories in January as a new way for advertisers to serve highly relevant ads promoting their Facebook properties. The ads show which of a user’s friends have recently Liked a Page or Page’s updates, used an app or game, or shared content from a Facebook-integrated website, amplifying the reach of what were news feed stories.

Until the launch of the App Ticker earlier this month, Sponsored Stories only appeared in the ads sidebar to users browsing Facebook. Now, gamers will see entries in their App Ticker marked “Sponsored”. These are in fact the same Sponsored Stories, albeit in a condensed format that just shows the name and face of a user’s friend and the title of an app or game they’ve used, but no image of the app or game. Sponsored Stories about Pages and websites may also appear in the App Ticker, though we’ve only seen ones about apps and games so far.

Previously, developers could try to gain new gamers through App Used, Game Played, and App Share Sponsored Stories, but these would be shown to all users including those who rarely or never played games. They could target Sponsored Stories about one of their apps to users of another app they controlled, but otherwise trying to reach gamers was less predictable.

With placement in a new channel that only reaches gamers, these types of Sponsored Stories are now more likely to reach their intended audience and drive installs from users with better monetization potential down the line.

Promoting Usage of Trusted Gamers

Inexperienced gamers might be lured to try out a new app just because any of their friends have installed it. However, developers are trying to draw hardcore social gamers with the most monetization potential. These users know which of their friends are actually active players that can be relied upon to accept requests and cooperate in games, in other words which friends’ implicit game recommendations through Sponsored Stories can be trusted.

Therefore, Facebook may need to refine its targeting and display algorithms for App Ticker Sponsored Stories so that game usage of these trusted gamer friends is more frequently displayed. These might not necessarily be a user’s closest friends with regards to social signals such as Likes of each other’s news feed posts or tags in the same photos. Instead the App Ticker Sponsored Stories should highlight friends who accept a user’s game requests, frequently interact in-game through gifting, visiting, and competitive activities, and play the most games.

Along with determining what friends have Sponsored Stories about them appear in the ticker, these algorithm tweaks could determine which friend’s photo is displayed in Sponsored Stories when the names of multiple friends that have used an app are listed.

If Facebook can surface trusted gamers in App Ticker Sponsored Stories, developers buying them will see better performance. This could make the ticker an important paid growth channel in addition to driving free, organic growth, leading developers to spend more on the social ad unit.

AJ Glasser contributed to this article.

Walk-throughs and strategies for using Facebook’s Sponsored Stories ad unit can be found in the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s comprehensive guide to marketing and advertising through Facebook.

Facebook this morning announced that it will hold 2011′s f8 developer conference on September 22nd in San Francisco. It will feature keynotes, networking, breakout sessions, and an after party. Facebook is now distributing invitations to developers, partners, and press, and those who don’t receive invitations can register to buy tickets here or watch a livestream of the whole event at f8.facebook.com.

While specifics about the conference’s agenda are sparse, we expect Facebook to launch several products about which information has leaked over the past few months, which we detail below. These include its HTML5 mobile gaming platform, the official Facebook for iPad app, and its music dashboard. Improvements to its mobile photo offering may also be launched, either in the form of new standalone apps or as additional features to its primary mobile apps.

The company explains that f8 “is your opportunity to learn about our new products and understand how to get the best out of your existing social apps and web sites. Best of all, you get to hear directly from the Facebook engineers who build these products, and interact with developers from around the world.”

Several major product were launched at Facebook’s last f8 in April 2010, including the Like button, social plugins, the Graph API, and Instant Personalization. Developers will likely be eager to attend the 2011 f8 to hear about new opportunities to create social apps and websites.

The conference will be held at San Francisco’s Concourse Design Center. Amongst “a day filled with new product announcements”, there will also be a Q&A with Facebook’s engineering and product teams, and strategy sessions detailing best practices for developing apps and experiences that utilize Facebook data.

There will likely be some big surprise announcements at f8, particularly around new developer tools that expand access to Facebook data, but here are details on the products we do expect to launch:

HTML 5 Mobile Gaming Platform aka Project Spartan

Facebook has been building an HTML5 version of m.facebook.com that will be capable of running applications through mobile browsers. Around 80 third-party developers including Zynga and The Huffington Post are reportedly preparing apps for the platform. It will permit Facebook to expand its Facebook Credits virtual currency to mobile, allowing it to make money on mobile purchases of virtual goods by sidestepping Apple’s App Store and the Android Marketplace.

Expect details of the HTML5 platform to be released and third-party developers to present their new apps at f8.

Official Facebook for iPad App

To date, Facebook has opted not to release an official iPad app, leaving third-parties to create tablet-optimized editions of the service. A working version of the app was leaked in July, though, so it appears that Facebook for iPad will be ready for launch at f8.

If the design stays similar to what we saw in the leak, the iPad app will feature multi-pane navigation to contrast with the grid view home screen of the iPhone app. Users will be able to simultaneously Chat with friends and browse the service. It may also tie directly into the HTML5 mobile platform, allowing games to be played within the app.

Music Dashboard

Facebook has been reportedly established partnerships with several online music services that it could aggregate into a music dashboard accessible from the home page. Spotify will likely be involved, as could Pandora, Last.fm, Rdio, Mog, or Grooveshark. It may let users stream music, view what their friends are listening to, and possibly purchase subscriptions to premium music services with Facebook Credits.

The music dashboard and its related partnerships could be unveiled at f8, bringing users a unified, native music experience on Facebook.

Mobile Photos Enhancements

In June, documentation was leaked showing a prototype of a new mobile photos app. At f8 Facebook could launch the new features as the second standalone native app following Messenger, or as enhancements to the primary mobile apps such as Facebook for iPhone. The app appears to offer a photo feed, multi-shot uploads, support for video, Instagram-like filters, and the ability to tag a Place or Event where photos were taken.

Facebook looks to have hired staff to work on Credits, engineering, client partners, data centers, policy and intellectual property, according to listings removed from the company’s Careers Page and posts from the LinkedIn feed. The company also changed the name of one of its departments from Growth & Internalization to Growth & Analytics.

New hires per LinkedIn and Other Sources:

• Susan Gonzales, External Affairs – has worked in similar fields previously.
• Alain Mayni, Client Partner – formerly a communication manager at Leo Burnett.
• Sertan Bayhan, Client Partner German – formerly a corporate account manager at Dell.
• Vanessa Bakewell, Client Partner – was an Industry Manager at Google.
• Jordan Crasilneck, Contractor – has worked in human resources and recruiting at Facebook.
• Hoon Cho, Intern – formerly a Software Engineer at Telus.
• Marjory Le Hervet, Global Marketing Solutions Team – was working as a coach and sales representative for Apple France.
• Marcin Pawłowski, Software Developer Intern – formerly did similar work for NVIDIA.
• Wei Yeh, User Interface Engineer – formerly a webmaster at PokeDream.
• David Ma, Data Science – previously worked with equity derivatives in TD Securities.
• Belinda Shormeh Botwe, Specialist, Ad Operations – formerly a digital meda planner with OMD Germany.

Prior listings now removed from the Facebook Careers Page:

• Intellectual Property Principal, User Operations (Dublin)
• Physical Security Operations Manager
• Communications Manager, Latin America (Sao Paulo)
• Corporate Communications Manager – Facebook Credits
• Director of Policy (France)
• Director of Policy (Scandinavia)
• Head of Policy – India
• CDN Engineer
• Data Center Site Selection Manager
• Data Center Network Technician (NC)
• Head of Sales, CEEMEA (London)
• Business Operations Associate
• Finance Operations Project Manager – FB Payments and FB Credits
• Client Partner (Singapore)
• Business Account Manager (New York)
• Infrastructure Application Development Engineer

Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.

Facebook is searching for more engineering, recruiting, legal, marketing and user operations staff across its offices, according to posts on the company’s Careers Page and its LinkedIn feed this week. The company is also looking for a few employees to work in new communications staff all over the world, including in Paris, Dublin and Singapore.

Posts added this week on Facebook’s Careers Page:

• Global Leader, People Business Partner Team
• Recruiting Coordinator – Contract (Seattle)
• News Feed Analyst
• Corporate Communications Manager, Internal Communications
• Managing Editor, Corporate Communications
• Network Security Engineer
• Analyst, Business Operations – (Austin, TX)
• Analyst, Business Operations – Online Sales
• Associate, Business Operations – Agency (NYC)
• Finance Manager – Infrastructure and Network
• Manager, Business Operation – APAC/LATAM – (Menlo Park)
• Manager, Business Operations (Menlo Park, CA)
• Client Partner (Paris)
• Manager, Inside Sales and Online Sales Operations for Australia and New Zealand (Singapore)
• Manager, Inside Sales and Online Sales Operations for Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan (Singapore)
• Account Manager – Arabic (Dublin)
• Account Manager – Hebrew (Dublin)
• Account Manager – Russian (Dublin)
• Manager, Global Speaker Programming
• Application Development Engineer (Infra)

Jobs posted by Facebook on LinkedIn:

• Compliance Manager (Palo Alto)
• Commerce Manager (Palo Alto)
• Quantitative Business Analyst (Palo Alto)
• User Operations Manager, Global Outsourcing
• Manager, Business Operation – APAC/LATAM – (Menlo Park)
• Associate, Business Operations – Agency (NYC)
• Analyst, Business Operations – Online Sales
• IT Regional Support Manager – APAC
• Developer Support Engineer (Dublin)
• Developer Support Engineer (Russian)
• Team Lead, User Operations (Dublin)
• Client Partner (Paris)
• Account Manager – Russian (Dublin)
• Account Manager – Hebrew (Dublin)
• Account Manager – Arabic (Dublin)
• Global Leader, People Business Partner Team
• Law Enforcement Response Analyst
• Finance Manager – Infrastructure and Network
• Policy and Operations Manager

Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.

Facebook today announced changes to its Ad Guidelines that permit advertising for several verticals that were previously prohibited. Offline gambling can be promoted, as can online gambling if ads are targeted outside of the US and have Facebook’s explicit consent.

Lottery commissions and legal dietary supplements may also be promoted with some restrictions. Ads for online pharmacies are prohibited unless they are certified and approved by Facebook

The changes will give a wider range of industries the opportunity to attain customers through Facebook highly targetable ads, and could generate more advertising revenue for the social network.

Facebook recently eased some of its promotion guidelines, removing prohibitions of contests, sweepstakes and other promotions of gambling and some other verticals. However, the continued prohibition of these industries in the Ad guidelines and Platform Policies restricted exactly what these promotions could include.

Now, Facebook has also eased its Ad Guidelines for some of these verticals, which could create significant new advertising opportunities for some industries. Below we’ll list the changed Ad Guidelines, and follow up with analysis exactly what has changed and how this impacts advertisers:

Gambling

III. Ad Content

       E. Gambling and Lotteries

Ads that promote or facilitate online gambling, games of skill or lotteries, including online casino, sports books, bingo, or poker, are only allowed in specific countries with prior authorization from Facebook.

Lottery commissions licensed or sponsored by government entities may advertise on Facebook; provided that ads must be targeted in accordance with applicable law in the jurisdiction in which the ads will be served and may only target users in the jurisdiction in which the lottery is available.

Ads that promote offline gambling establishments, such as offline casinos, in accordance with applicable laws and regulations, are generally permitted, provided that ads must be appropriately targeted.

The most significant of the changes is the permission of ads for offline gambling without the need for consent from Facebook, as long as ads are targeted to users over the legal age of 18 within countries where gambling is permitted.

Gambling ads may only be purchased through a direct sales partnership with Facebook, which requires a monthly minimum spend of $30,000, and may not be purchased through the self-serve ads tool or  the Facebook Ads API.

Facebook previously permitted ads for online gambling with permission, but it has now clarified that these ads must be targeted outside the US in addition to having the site’s consent. These changes will allow casinos and other offline gaming establishments to target nearby Facebook users with ads in hopes of enticing them to visit in person, and may boost confidence in understanding of the policy for online gambling advertisers.

Unofficial lotteries are regulated by guidelines for online gambling, but government authorized or sponsored lottery commissions are governed by separate guidelines. As long as they comply with local laws, and only target those of age in their jurisdiction, they may advertise without explicit consent from Facebook. The ability for state lottery commissions to geo-target their Facebook ads by state could help them efficiently increase sales.

Online Pharmacies Dietary Supplements

III. Ad Content

       F. Pharmaceuticals and Supplements

Ads must not promote the sale of prescription pharmaceuticals. Ads for online pharmacies are prohibited except that ads for certified pharmacies may be permitted with prior approval from Facebook.

Ads that promote dietary and herbal supplements are generally permitted, provided they do not promote products containing anabolic steroids, chitosan, comfrey, dehydroepiandrosterne, ephedra, human growth hormones, melatonin, and any additional products deemed unsafe or questionable by Facebook in its sole discretion.

Online pharmacies were not expressly prohibited before, but the guidelines now state they must be certified and have pre-approval from Facebook to run ads. This may close an advertising channel for some businesses.

Previously, Facebook prohibited ads for all “uncertified pharmaceutical products”. Now those that are legal, available without a perscription, and that don’t contain any of the above ingredients may be advertised. Facebook does reserve the right to deem products unsafe and pull their ads, though.

Businesses selling legal dietary supplements, as popularized by the book “The Four-Hour Work Week”, may now serve ads to Facebook users. By targeting Precise Interests such as “weight lifting” or using Facebook’s new Topic targeting system to reach those who’ve Liked Pages related to #weight training, these businesses may be able fo find a wealth of new customers.

The Inside Network Job Board is dedicated to providing you with the best job opportunities across social and mobile application platforms.

Here are this week’s highlights from the Inside Network Job Board, including positions at Acquinity Interactive, TinyCo, TBG Digital, lolapps, Zynga, Tagged, 5th Planet Games, Breaktime Studios and Liquid Entertainment.

• Senior Online Web Product Manager
• Junior Online Media Buyer
• Online Marketing Manager
• Front End Web Developer
• Web Designer

• User Acquisition Specialist
• Monetization Analyst

• Ad Ops Analyst

• Gameplay QA Engineer for Second Largest Social Gaming Company
• Game Lead / Engineering Manager
• Flash Engineer – Game Play
• Principal Analyst

• Product Manager
• Procurement Analyst
• Director of Product, Revenue
• Product Manager – Customer Service Support
• Software Engineer
• Strategic Sourcing & Vendor Management Specialist ? Corporate Services

• Business Intelligence Analyst
• Software Engineer – Games
• Game Business Analyst
• Creative Director – Social Games
• Game Designer

• Mobile Game Developer (iOS)

• Monetization Manager
• Gaming Software Engineer

• UI Artist
• Social Games Programmer

Listings on the Inside Network Job Board are distributed to readers of Inside Social Games, Inside Facebook and Inside Mobile Apps through regular posts and widgets on the sites. Your open positions are being seen by the leading developers, product managers, marketers, designers, and executives in the Facebook Platform and social gaming industry today.

Facebook will soon discontinue its current developer forums and Stack Overflow will become the new official space for developers to ask and answer technical questions about the Platform. As of September 1st, forum.developers.facebook.net will become “read-only”, and Facebook will encourage developers to post new questions to facebook.stackoverflow.com.

Through the partnership with Stack Overflow, Facebook’s new Q&A space will have a reputation score system to identify trusted contributors and top questions will appear on corresponding Facebook developer documentation pages. However, existing and active threads on Facebook’s old forums will not be migrated to Stack Overflow, so the shift could interrupt some important discussions.

Stack Overflow was launched in 2008 and has since grown to 766,000 users. The site is created and maintained by programmers, and is part of a network of Q&A sites called Stack Exchange that has raised $18 million in funding. By hosting its forums there, Facebook will gain an additional built-in community that can help developers with their issues.

Facebook says that the move is necessary because “our existing forums, which worked effectively at the beginning of Platform, have begun to show their age.” They lack many features found on Stack Overflow, including a reputation system, tagging protocol, and thread sorting by votes, recent activity, and other parameters.

On the new Facebook Stack Overflow site, developers will be able to earn a high reputation score as well as badges and access to functionality privileges by intelligently asking, answering, and editing technical questions about how Facebook’s Platform works. The scores and badges will help other developers determine who’s advice they can rely on. On the old Facebook forums, it can be difficult to tell if someone’s answer is reliable.

By syndicating top Facebook Stack Overflow questions in the documentation, developers will be able to quickly access answers to common or especially difficult questions they may have. This flow is much simpler than trying to find the corresponding thread to a piece of documentation in the old forums. Facebook is also encouraging developers to join the Facebook Developers Group to find answers to questions or discuss higher-level issues.

It may take some time for Facebook Stack Overflow to grow as robust as the old forums, though. Facebook tells us “existing threads will not be migrated. Developers have until Sept.1 to finish up active discussions.” The “read-only” status of the old forums will prevent developers from linking the old forum threads to the corresponding discussion on Stack Overflow. Developers in the middle of a dialog in the old forums may be frustrated by the interruption.

Eventually, the shift to Stack Overflow will produce a better developer Q&A experience than the old forums. However, the relatively short lead time to finish active threads and the lack of a migration or pre-population plan for the new site could temporarily undermine Operation Developer Love.