Facebook® Application Development For Dummies®

Giving Your Application a Home on Facebook with the Canvas Page

I cover the Canvas Page in Chapter 2, the chapter in which you create your first application. Your Canvas Page is where you, as a software developer, get to paint your application in pretty much any way you choose, by providing a URL that renders a full page of what you want the user to see. The Canvas Page is essentially your application's Home — it's where you can make your application an extension of Facebook. it's a way to make other Facebook users feel your application or Web site is just another part of Facebook, keeping them from needing to leave the site.

Also, you can monetize this page as you like by putting ads by supported advertisers, selling products, and more. On the Canvas Page, you can do just about anything you choose, as long as it fits in the Facebook Developer Terms of Use.

Although you can monetize this page as you choose, Facebook does have specific guidelines surrounding advertising on this page. Make sure that you look up Facebook's advertising guidelines on the Policy page (www.facebook.com/ad_guidelines.php). In short, no deceptive advertising is allowed, and no incentives to click on advertising are allowed. You will probably be safe just making sure that there are no questions about what you can and cannot do on Facebook when using advertising on your Canvas Pages. In fact, Facebook just ...