"Whatever you love, whatever story it is you want to tell, you can add that to your timeline," said Carl Sjogreen, director of platform products for Facebook.
The initial batch of some 60 "apps" included contributions from companies such as Foodspotting, Rotten Tomatoes, Pinterest, TripAdvisor and e-reader Kobo.
The handful of companies present at the rollout event in San Francisco pitched their apps as a way to allow users to more fully integrate their social experiences outside of Facebook into their social networking profile.
Someone reading an e-book from Kobo, for example, could highlight passages they want to share with Facebook friends. The app also will automatically track which books they have finished or started reading and connect them with other Facebook users reading the same books.
Richard Penner of Kobo said the company views books as a social experience and believes that is what its customers want too. "We believe users want to engage with each other," he said.
It was a theme echoed by almost all developers who gathered in a chic, softly lit downtown lounge to show off their apps: it's no longer enough to simply allow users to "like" a book or a pair of jeans; an entire social experience should be created around everyday habits.
With the app from Foodspotting, food connoisseurs can easily share their love of a particularly delicious cheeseburger or just let friends know they tried an avocado roll at a new sushi place everyone is talking about.
"It gives extra context to friends," said Foodspotting spokeswoman Fiona Tang.
Developers were quick to emphasize user control over which actions appear on Facebook -- an issue that has prompted concern among some privacy rights advocates since the apps were first announced last year. Read more
This post is a nice way to introduce new people in the industry to explore new ways. Thanks Facebook! :)
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