Well, before we get to this awesomely spectacular news, I’d like to first admit that this blog is extremely behind in terms of MyFriendWeb News… we’ve released a number of new Facebook apps, and number of updates and not posted about them here. That’s my fault really. Anyways:

It’s alive! The Application Data API For Facebook! Yesterday, after much much work, we released the Application Data API. In a nutshell it allows you get Application Statistics for a given app id(s) via a simple API. You can query for today’s statistics on a given app, or for historical statistics. We’re currently tracking about 15,000 apps daily, and that number keeps growing.

Here’s a link; try it and tell me what you think:

App Data API for Facebook

We’ve built both a PHP and Python library, and even allow HTTP Requests to retrieve application data. There’s a test console, and brief documentation on the above app, along with example code, and download links for the two libraries.

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A new Facebook app has cropped up… it’s called Secret Notes, and it allows you to write secret notes about people.

Secret Notes has actually been up for a while; we added it to the Facebook Apps page about a week ago. It’s Nick’s creation really; I ported it to work on our MOZ platform. MOZ stands for My Online Zone; it was the prototype name for “MyFriendWeb” until we realized how corny My Online Zone sounded. That was back when MyFriendWeb.com was going to be this cool social-networking site, and not just a provider of “social-integration enabling applications” (Facebook apps).

Anyway, back to Secret Notes. Nick did most of the coding; I just made it work like the other MOZ Facebook Apps, and I’m responsible for marketing, promotion, maintenance and to some extent, support. We’re also hosting Secret Notes on the MyFriendWeb server, which by the way is uber awesome (not really; but it IS cool).

So back to Secret Notes; really this time. Nick says it just right - “Secret Notes is a little app where you can be elitist and write down, well, secret notes about people.” In other words, let’s say there’s this guy in your class who owes you $5. You can add a little secret note about him - “Never pays back. Owes me $5. Don’t lend him anymore money until he pays back for the pizza.” Or let’s say there’s this girl that looks really good. If her picture does not immediately strike you as such, perhaps a Secret Note could help - “is a very pretty girl”. Or, what about this scenario - Person X borrows a textbook from you. Just put in a note, so that when you need it back, you remember to ask him. And of course the people who you write secret notes about will NOT be able to see your secret notes; neither will any of your other friends. Only you can edit/see your secret notes. That’s why they’re called SECRET notes. Get it? Yeah, it’s not that funny.

But enjoy! And do try it out (we only have three users as of today): Secret Notes Facebook App

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Regarding: Random-Me Facts
Update:

• All Facts page which lets friends see all your facts

All Facts page added!! So now, your friends can see all your facts on one page, instead of having to refresh your profile to get a new fact. All new Random-Me Facts users will see a link on their profile box to access this “All Facts” page. Existing users will have to make some change in order for their profile box to be updated… for example add a fact, and then delete it, or change the font size then change it back. I know, it’s an annoying hassle for existing users…. hopefully we’ll invent some auto-update feature soon, so in the future you won’t have to make silly changes to the facts/font size to have your profile box updated. For now though, this itsy bit of manual labor is required (sorrry).

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We’ve released another Facebook app - Random Quotes. You type in the quotes along with the author, and then we randomly display quotations on your profile. You might wonder how this differs from Random-Me Facts: Well first Random-Me Facts is for facts, and Random Quotes is for quotes. More importantly though, the profile box for Random Quotes is styled completely differently than the profile box for Random-Me Facts. The Random Quotes Profile Box sports decorative quotes, on both sides of your quotation, along with a background, font, and size very suitable for quotations. The “author” also occupies a nice space of the profile box, suitable for, well, authors. In other words, with Random Quotes, quotes look nice on your Facebook profile.

So, try it out: Random Quotes For Facebook

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Regarding: Random-Me Facts
Update:

• Option to Invite Friends to Random-Me Facts

Voila! As per a user suggestion, Random-Me Facts now allows you to invite friends. Bare in mind that this is completely optional, but we’d love it if you could spread the word about Random-Me Facts, since its such an awesome application.

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Regarding: Random-Me Facts Facebook App
Update:

• Improved Mini-Feed Publishing System - it’s less spammy now
• Improved Profile Box display - now gives better indication of fact being displayed
• Some stylistic changes

These upgrades were actually made a while ago; just been lazy to publish a blog about it.

Alright… more upgrades for Random-Me Facts. It’s now a lot less spammy - mini feeds are only published if a fact is added. In addition a number is also displayed above the random fact on your profile. This number represents the number of the random fact (so for example, if you entered three random facts, and the third one happened to appear when friend X viewed your profile, it would say “3 of 3″ on the top of the profile box; if the second one was display, it would say “2 of 3″; and if the first one was displayed it would say “1 of 3″). This just helps to give an indication to friend X as to which fact he’s now looking at. If he refreshes the page in hopes of seeing another fact, he can quickly tell if he’s looking at another fact, or if the same fact appeared again. And we’ve made some stylistic changes - namely “slightly larger” is now not as large, and the default font size for new users has been changed to “normal”.

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Regarding: Random-Me Facts Facebook App
Upgrade:

• Change Style: Change Random Facts Font Size - option to let users change the font size of the Random Facts that appear on user’s profile

Yesterday we released an upgrade to Random-Me Facts. I was looking through Facebook application pages, to see what types of features most people were interested in. It seems many people have requested that applications provide a way for people to change the font size of information appearing on their profile, so now we’ve added the “Change Style” option to Random-Me. Click on it, and you’ll be able to change the font size of the Random Facts that are displayed on your profile. The default is “slightly larger”, but you can change it to “normal”. Normal, of course, keeps the size of the Random Facts text in sync with the rest of your profile, rather than making it slightly larger. I’d recommend “Normal” be used for people who write long about me facts (aka, ones that span a whole sentence or two), and “slightly larger” be used for those who are more accustomed to one or two word facts. Anyway, enjoy the update

Of course if you have any questions/problems/feature ideas feel free to comment here, on the Random-Me Facts app page, or send in a query via the “Having Problems / Feature Request” link (which is located on each Random-Me Facts page in Facebook).

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Our first Facebook App has been officially launched!! It’s not listed in Facebook’s Application directory, not yet at least. We need to get at least 5 users first, and I think we might only have something like 4 at the moment. Anyway, you can still try it out via this link right here: Random-Me Facts. So, try it!

Random-Me Facts lets you enter facts about yourself, which are then displayed on your Facebook profile. You can enter as many facts as you like (aka, UNLIMITED). I’ve tested it out, and I think it works pretty smoothly, but if anyone’s having problems, feel free to comment here, on the Facebook app page, or send me an e-mail.

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MyFriendWeb.com opens up it’s doors as a new site set out to explore social interaction and networking. From it’s home page:

MyFriendWeb.com was re-created in 2007 by web designer Venkat Koduru as a way to explore and expand social interaction and networking. Years ago, we had an idea to create our very own social networking site which would titled MyFriendWeb. After about a year into the production, we decided to stop work on the project for a number of reasons… Nevertheless, from this exploration we gained insight into perhaps some interesting ways in which we can further the platform of social networking and online communication. We’ve decided to once again delve into some of these concepts, albeit this time not with a whole new platform, but rather with add-ons/extensions to existing ones, namely add-ons to Facebook.

It’s a renaissance of social-networking ideas from MyFriendWeb.com. Enjoy! Keep checking myfriendweb.com; pretty soon we’ll launch some Facebook apps, and maybe go from there.

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