Facebook® Application Development For Dummies®

Understanding the Facebook Application Development Process

Anyone can create a Facebook application, and the great thing about it is there is no approval process to get up and going! To develop a good application, you just need to follow the rules Facebook has set up (I cover those in Chapter 15), know how to set up your application (I cover that a little later in this Chapter and in Chapter 2), and then start getting people to use it. For the most part, there are no crazy application processes like Apple App store or Android Marketplace. You create it and it's live.

Social applications aren't exactly like typical programs you would typically write. When you work with Social APIs, you have to consider that your code will naturally promote itself. The code you're writing enables people to share information quickly and effectively. In essence, writing social apps makes you both a programmer and a marketer, because your code is now selling your product. So what things do you need to consider?

• Expect you'll need to scale. Although this is no longer the gold rush of 2007 when simple Facebook applications would go from one to two million users in just two days, there is still a good chance your Web site or application could grow very quickly. All it takes is for someone with hundreds of thousands of fans to talk about your application or Web site and soon you are getting slammed with new users. Use a hosting facility that can handle your scaling quickly. Hosting services like Amazon ...