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Facebook Improves Chat/App Integration

Article Written By Doug Caverly

There are certain places in which people shouldn't gab - libraries, graveyards, and perhaps art museums, for starters - but otherwise, stifling conversations is a sure way to annoy folks. Facebook has acknowledged this fact by giving developers an important new option.

"[W]e're excited to launch the ability for you to let users initiate Facebook Chat conversations in applications on Facebook," wrote Yariv Sadan on the [url=\"http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=208\"]Facebook Developers blog[/url]. "Not only will this allow for greater interaction within your application, but it can also provide significant growth as users invite their friends to join them in real-time."

After all, no matter how stupid someone thinks an app is, it'll be hard to turn for him or her to turn down live requests from friends who want to talk. Whereas it's quite easy to just say no to zombies, sheep-throwing, or what have you when a Facebook user knows a massive number of invitations might have been sent out of sheer boredom.

As for some slightly more technical details, Sadan added, "With the new fb:chat-invite FBML tag, you can display a list of a user's online friends and allow the user to invite a friend to chat. Like with the multi-friend selector, you can customize which friends should or shouldn't appear in this list using the exclude_ids parameter."

So give some thought as to what sort of conversations you want to encourage, and then get to work transforming your Facebook app from some silent, stuffy place into a noisy, fun hangout.

[b]About the Author:[/b]
Doug is a staff writer for [url=\"http://www.webpronews.com/\"]WebProNews[/url]. Visit [url=\"http://www.webpronews.com/\"]WebProNews[/url] for the latest eBusiness news.

That's just even more annoying. They're right -- it is harder to say no to accepting an app invite because my friend is there talking. Of course I'm going to want to talk to them. So of course I'll add that app... Thus making my profile more annoying and cluttered than before. I hate apps. The only ones I like are the subtle ones -- not those stupid games where you bite people with zombies and add as many people as possible to make your e-penis get bigger.... I'm starting to get a bit peeved at facebook lol.

What's Facebook <img src=\'http://www.killanet.net/forum3/public/s ... >/blum.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':P\' /> One of these days I'm going to sign up...eventually...


It seems like Facebook / Myspace are becoming more of an MMORPG than a social networking site. :\

they kind of are now.... with all those stupid applications you can add it's nothing but an rpg of friends who try to get you to play the same apps as you............. bah

I don't have that many apps on my account, and I have a lot of apps on ignore.