The document provides an overview of the Facebook Open Graph and Timeline features introduced in 2011, detailing their implications for publishers, brands, and startups. It emphasizes how these features allow users to connect with various actions and objects on the platform, potentially driving significant traffic to applications. Additionally, it outlines best practices for integrating with Open Graph, including user consent and the importance of rich metadata.

1. thanks for the ad(d).
Facebook Timeline & Open Graph
Platform Briefing - Die Socialisten 11/2012
(Photo: Facebook.com)

2. About: Die Socialisten
"Die Socialisten" is a Vienna-based social-software agency
focussing on the design & implementation of
applications and marketing-solutions on social web
platforms like Facebook.
To date, we have successfully built more than onehundred
brand-pages, applications and integrations of external
websites.
Our clients include Red Bull, Axel Springer/Bild.de,
Bertelsmann, FTD, Krone Multimedia, ATV and Hitradio Ö3.
"Die Socialisten" are Austria's first agency listed in the
official "Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer"-program.
http://die.socialisten.at | http://facebook.com/diesocialisten
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3. Intro: What is
Open Graph / Timeline?

4. Intro:
Facebook Open Graph / Timeline
On their annual f8-event in September 2011, Facebook
introduced the biggest change to the platform since
News-Feed in 2006:
Timeline & Open Graph
In this briefing we want to give you an overview on these
game-changing features, especially focussing on the
opportunities they represent for publishers, brands and
startups.
Plus: Lessons learned after developing +1 year for the
Open Graph and launching numerous apps...
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5. Intro:
Facebook Open Graph / Timeline
The basic idea behind Timeline-/Open Graph-Apps:
People already are using apps (on Facebook, on the Web, Mobile).
People are doing all kinds of things on these apps (listening to
songs, watching movies, publishing what books they read, recording
their sports-activities etc.). Let’s call these activities ”actions”.
Now, let people continue using their apps the way they are already
doing it (no need to force them into new “Facebook-Canvas-Apps”).
Instead: let them publish all actions they want to their Timeline-
profile, by connecting your app to the Open Graph!
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6. Rewind:
Open Graph Protocol
Released in 2010, Open Graph Protocol allowed publishers to
connect their websites, blogs, apps with the Facebook Social Graph.
How? By adding the Like-Button:
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7. Open Graph Protocol connected users and objects with one type of
edge - the “like”. The objects (mostly articles, videos...) are
incorporated into Facebooks social graph.

8. Intro:
Facebook Open Graph / Timeline
With Timeline / Open Graph, Facebook allows developers to publish
almost any kind of connection between users and objects.
Objects can be any piece of content (music, video, article...), but
also more app-specific things - a running-route, a comment on a
book, a recipe...
Actions can be all kinds of verbs - read, listen to, watch, cook,
recommend, collect, run, comment...
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9. With Open Graph, users can connect with objects with all sorts
of actions! Everything is represented in Facebooks social graph.

10. Intro:
Facebook Open Graph / Timeline
How & when are Open Graph Actions published?
In some cases, actions can be published automatically,
after a user has consumed content for a while (Audio,
Video, News) = “Passive Sharing”
However, users should always be able to easily un-publish and opt-out.
Examples: Spotify, Social Reader-Apps...
In most cases, actions should be published when the
user takes the particular action in your app =
“Explicit Sharing”
When a comment is posted, a rating done, a friend followed etc.
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11. Intro:
Facebook Open Graph / Timeline
Two important caveats:
1. Users have to approve each app, before it is allowed to
publish to their timeline! Actions will never be published
without the users explicit consent!
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12. Intro:
Facebook Open Graph / Timeline
Two important caveats:
2. All actions a developer wants
to use, must be approved by
Facebook first!
The Approval-Process normally
takes a few days max.
Facebook checks on grammar,
user-experience, abuse etc.
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13. Intro:
Facebook Open Graph / Timeline
Why start building for Open Graph today?
Actions published through your App receive a great amount of
exposure on the platform, and therefore can drive massive traffic to
your app or content-site:
Early results from US-centric Showcase-apps are very promising:
Yahoo! News (+600% Referral-Traffic von Facebook)
The Independent (>1mio monthly active users)
The Guardian (4mio app installs)
Washington Post (3.5mio app installs)
Source: Facebook (https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/603/)
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14. Intro:
Facebook Open Graph / Timeline
What type of apps can integrate with Open Graph?
- Stand-alone Web-Apps (http://yourdomain.com)
- Canvas- & Tab-Apps within Facebook
(http://apps.facebook.com/yourapp)
- Mobile Web-Apps
- Native iOS- & Android-Apps
-
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15. Intro:
Facebook Open Graph / Timeline
Not only content-sites, but apps & startups as well!
Lots of showcases incl. numbers, best practises can be found at:
http://developers.facebook.com/blog/archive#2012 (search f. “spotlight”)
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16. Intro:
Facebook Open Graph / Timeline
mixcloud.com: -40% bouncerate f. Facebook-referrals, spotlight
friends’ activity, easy sharing of listened music.
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17. Intro:
Facebook Open Graph / Timeline
tumblr.com: Increased Facebook-Referral Traffic x2!
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18. Intro:
Facebook Open Graph / Timeline
endomodo: Increased Facebook-Referral Traffic x1.75,
No. of shared stories on Facebook x2.5! die.socialisten.at
social network development

19. Distribution: Where on
Facebook are Open Graph-
actions displayed?

20. Intro:
Facebook Open Graph / Timeline
So, where are actions displayed, once they are being published?
They’re featured in the News-Feed, when deemed more important or
when similar actions have been performed (Cluster).
They’re featured on the new Ticker in Realtime.
They’re featured in Stories & Aggregations on Timeline-Profiles.
They’re featured in app-specific Timeline-Views on profiles.
Not all published actions will be displayed in every channel!
All your friends can see published actions, wether they have installed
the app, from which actions are originating from, or not!
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21. Distribution:
Where are Actions being displayed?
Newsfeed - Single Action:
Available f. all Custom
Actions, but heavily
filtered by GraphRank
(=most OG-actions won’t
be displayed in
Newsfeed!)
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22. Distribution:
Where are Actions being displayed?
Newsfeed - Multiple Actions:
Available f.
all Custom
Actions, but
heavily
filtered by
GraphRank
(=most OG-
actions won’t
be displayed
in Newsfeed!)
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23. Distribution:
Where are Actions being displayed?
Newsfeed - Aggregated:
Only f. Built-in Actions
(maybe even only
“listen”?) - Heavily
filtered by GraphRank
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24. Distribution:
Where are Actions being displayed?
Newsfeed - Aggregated:
Only f. Built-in Action
“read”. Only displayed
if a no. of friends have
read the article!
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25. Distribution:
Where are Actions being displayed?
Ticker:
Contains more
actions, but is
still filtered, so
f.e. not every song
listened on Spotify
is displayed!
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26. Distribution:
Where are Actions being displayed?
Timeline - Stories:
Most actions won’t be
displayed as separate
story. There are some
tricks though :)
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27. Distribution:
Where are Actions being displayed?
Timeline - Aggregations:
Facebook will display
aggregations for most
frequently used apps only!
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28. Distribution:
Where are Actions being displayed?
Timeline - App-Views:
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29. Distribution:
Where are Actions being displayed?
Timeline - App-Views:
App-specific Views are quite hidden, only
user can set visible tiles! Still a great
feature to show off all your aggregations!
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30. Distribution:
Where are Actions being displayed?
Dev-Tip: Users see all published actions in the “Activity Log” -
contains all actions, from all apps, no matter how it was published!
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31. The Activity Log: If its not there,
it probably hasn’t been published at all!
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32. Insights:
Some real-life data!

33. Insights:
Some real-life data
Last.fm Scrobbler f. Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/LastfmScrobbler
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34. Insights:
Some real-life data
Last.fm Scrobbler f. Facebook
>80k MAU
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35. Insights:
Some real-life data
Last.fm Scrobbler f. Facebook
>120mio Actions published in 2012
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36. Insights:
Some real-life data
CTR & Distribution of Impressions:
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37. Insights:
Some real-life data
Retention:
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38. Best Practise: How-to get
the most out of Open Graph
for your app!

39. Best Practise:
Built-in Open Graph-Actions
For content-heavy sites (news, video, music):
Use the built-in actions read, watch, listen!
Feel free to share these actions passively!
(=in the background, with no explicit user-interaction)
Give users a clear indication that
they’ve published an action!
Give users an easy undo-option and/or history/log
to un-publish their actions!
Give users an easy way to opt-out
for the session or even forever!
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social network development

40. Best Practise:
Built-in Open Graph-Actions
Opt-out, Indication & Undo
http://apps.facebook.com/meinklub
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41. Best Practise:
Built-in Open Graph-Actions
Action-History/Log
http://apps.facebook.com/meinklub
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42. Best Practise:
Custom Open Graph-Actions
Add 3+ Custom Open Graph-actions
that mirror the interactions users naturally take in your app!
Add rich OG meta-data your OG-objects!
Connect your OG-object-model!
Build rich stories for your published OG-actions!
Build attractive aggregations for Timeline!
Watch out: Passive Sharing is not allowed for Custom
Actions starting February 2013!
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43. Best Practise:
Custom Open Graph-Actions
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44. Best Practise:
Custom Open Graph-Actions
Let users enter custom messages!
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45. Best Practise:
Custom Open Graph-Actions
Inter-connect your OG-object-model & add rich metadata!
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46. Best Practise:
Custom Open Graph-Actions
Let users upload images & add location!
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47. Best Practise:
Custom Open Graph-Actions
Use @-mentions to Tag friends!
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48. Best Practise:
Custom Open Graph-Actions
How-to increase visibility of Custom Actions
in Newsfeed and other channels!
- Add OG-metadata to your stories!
- Let users add custom text-messages
- Let users add location
- Let users upload images
- Let users @-mention friends
- Use “fb_explicit_sharing”-Option when publishing
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49. Die Socialisten
Apps Showcase 2012
Mein Klub
http://apps.facebook.com/meinklub
Last.fm Scrobbler f. Facebook
http://apps.facebook.com/lastfm-og-scrobbler
Krone Social TV
http://www.facebook.com/kronetv?sk=app_135828866537171
ATV ampunkt
http://www.facebook.com/AmPunkt/app_119818284846
Uberch.at
http://uberch.at/
Social Reader Widget
http://nonsmokingarea.com/blog/
http://www.thomashutter.com
http://www.nintendo-online.de
Social Wall
http://wall.socialisten.at/
Swat.io
http://www.swat.io/
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50. “Facebook Programmierung -
Entwicklung von Social Apps & Websites”
Michael Kamleitner, Galileo Computing 2012
http://book.socialisten.at
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51. die.socialisten.at
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52. Michael Kamleitner
Die Socialisten
m: +43 699 116 07 923
e: michael.kamleitner@socialisten.at
f: http://facebook.com/michael.kamleitner
g: http://profiles.google.com/michael.kamleitner
t: http://twitter.com/_subnet