SAN FRANCISCO, July 23 /PRNewswire/ --

- Users and Developers Gain New Ways to Share and Stay Connected through 
the Power of Feeds

Facebook f8 Conference, July 23, 2008 -- Facebook today introduced the
latest advancements to Facebook Platform during its annual f8 developer
conference, calling on its more than 400,000 developers to connect their
Websites with Facebook through Facebook Connect, extend their applications to
dozens of languages worldwide, and make use of new developer resources to
help them succeed.

"We opened Facebook Platform with a belief that community innovation can
give people the tools, and the power, to share and communicate in ways that
Facebook can't build on its own. We're humbled by what our developer
community has accomplished," said Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of
Facebook. "We're confident that the changes we're presenting today help
developers build more meaningful social applications that enable users to
share more information."

Facebook earlier this week released its new site design for users to
preview and test, which is being gradually rolled out to Facebook's more than
90 million active users over the coming weeks. The changes announced today,
along with those launched earlier this week, leverage Facebook's powerful
feed system to give developers a new way to gain visibility and help users
share and discover more information.

Leveraging the Power of Feeds

"Across the Web, content creation has become easier and more immediate,
resulting in a continuous stream of information through what we call
'feeds'," said Zuckerberg. "The power of feeds on Facebook is their ability
to move you into a world where you receive relevant information in a social
context wherever you are on the Web."

The new site design emphasizes dynamic content and surfaces the most
recent and relevant information and activity through feeds, both on News Feed
and the Wall. For developers, the new site design enables even deeper
integration within the profile for their applications. By taking advantage of
the improvements with feeds on Facebook and the other new features,
developers can more efficiently distribute their applications and gain more
ways to engage meaningfully with users.

"We're confident that the new profile and integration points will give
entrepreneurs and developers even greater opportunities to build their
businesses and deliver on the promise of Facebook Platform," said Ben Ling,
director of platform program management, Facebook. "One goal of the new site
design is to align Facebook Platform with users' interests who will see a new
class of applications emerge that provide deeper engagement and a better
experience."

Making the Web More Social with Facebook Connect

Facebook announced that 24 Web sites and applications have joined its
efforts to make the Web more open and connected through Facebook Connect. A
developer 'sandbox' is now available so developers worldwide can start
working with Facebook Connect.

Facebook believes that enabling users to take their identity and friends
with them around the Web, while trusting that their privacy is protected,
makes the Web more open and connected. Facebook Connect allows users to bring
their Facebook account information, friends and privacy to any third party
website, desktop application or device.

Digg, Six Apart, and Citysearch were featured live during Zuckerberg's
keynote today demonstrating their planned implementations of Facebook
Connect. Facebook Connect will be generally available to users in the fall.

"Digg surfaces the best content on the Web as voted on by its community
of 26 million," said Kevin Rose, founder of Digg. "Facebook Connect will help
us promote more conversations on Digg by giving Facebook's 90 million users
an opportunity to sign-in to Digg with their Facebook accounts and become
part of the active Digg community. This allows both Facebook and Digg users
to more easily share the content they care about with the people they care
about."

With Facebook Connect, users benefit from the following features:
    -- Trusted Authentication - easily authenticate into partner sites using 
       their Facebook account 
    -- Real Identity - leverage their real identity across the Web in a 
       trusted environment
    -- Friend Linking - take their friends with them wherever they go, 
       enabling trusted social context anywhere on the Web
    -- Dynamic Privacy - assurance that the same privacy settings users have 
       set up on Facebook will follow them wherever they decide to login 
       throughout the Web
    -- Social Distribution - share actions on partner sites with their friends 
       back on Facebook through feeds



Additional planned participants at launch include: Amiando, CBS.com,
CNET, CollegeHumor, Disney-ABC Television Group, Evite, Flock, Hulu,
Kongregate, Loopt, Plaxo, Radar, Red Bull, Seesmic, Socialthing!,
StumbleUpon, The Insider, Twitter, Uber, Vimeo and Xobni.

Expanding Facebook Platform Internationally

As a result of the worldwide success of Facebook's translation system,
the company has opened up the Translation Application to any developer using
Facebook Platform. Beginning today, any Facebook developer can make their
application available in any of the 20 languages that are currently available
on Facebook, with 69 more coming soon.

Developers can now access the Translation Application 
(http://www.new.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=4329892722) to either
translate their applications themselves, or open up translation of their
application to Facebook users around the world, who will work together to
define it in their native languages.

This innovative approach combines the passion of Facebook users with
technologies that are systematic and manageable. The Translation Application
enables developers to get high-quality, fully-translated applications in
front of users, no matter where they live or what language they speak -- much
faster than ever before, and without ever having to pick up a dictionary.

"Through Facebook's international platform, the possibilities are endless
for both developers and users," said Chamath Palihapitiya, vice president of
growth, Facebook. "With no language barriers to break through, developers can
take the stage with an even larger audience of users from all over the world,
and users will have access to even more great applications than ever before
built by the world's best developers."

Helping Developers Succeed

When Facebook Platform launched in 2007, it gave developers the
opportunity to create applications that are deeply social and meaningful to
users. More than 400,000 developers and entrepreneurs from 160 countries have
signed up and developed applications. For the next phase of Platform,
Facebook has focused on ensuring that developers have the resources and
incentives they need to build applications that deliver on the vision of
Facebook Platform.

Facebook launched four new and expanded developer programs and resources:

1) Great Apps Program

Facebook's Great Apps program rewards applications that deliver value to
users and advance the Facebook Platform vision. Great Apps 
(http://developers.facebook.com/greatapps.php) embody Facebook's guiding
principles for social applications through their meaningful, trustworthy and
well-designed user experiences. Great Apps will gain greater visibility on
Facebook, earlier access to new features and more feedback from Facebook.
Facebook will open the Great Apps selection process to developers in
September.

Facebook is excited to announce iLike and Causes as the inaugural Great
Apps. "Facebook Platform provided iLike with an unprecedented opportunity to
become one of the world's leading online music services in just over a year,"
said Ali Partovi, CEO of iLike. "I'm delighted that Facebook is committed to
recognizing the apps that are most appreciated by users. We expect the Great
Apps program to have a very positive impact on the entire Facebook Platform
ecosystem."

"The Causes application enables socially-conscious Facebook users to
unlock the power of their social network in order to raise money and
awareness for the causes they care about," said Sean Parker, chairman and
co-founder of Causes. "With more than 100,000 causes created by 12 million
Facebook users, we've had remarkable success building user trust and value on
Facebook and we're excited to join the Great Apps program."

2) Application Verification

Facebook is introducing the Application Verification 
(http://developers.facebook.com/verification.php) program which is designed 
to offer extra assurances to help users identify applications they can 
trust -- applications that are secure, respectful and transparent, and have
demonstrated commitment to compliance with Platform policies. Verified
applications will benefit from added visibility on Facebook. The program is a
complement to Facebook's ongoing policy enforcement to keep the Platform
ecosystem robust, and will be open to developers in September.

3) Expanded fbFund Competition

In an effort to grow the Facebook ecosystem, fbFund 
(http://developers.facebook.com/fbfund.php) was introduced last year to
provide resources to developers, by eliminating some of the challenges of
starting a company. As part of a new competition, Facebook will award nearly
US$10 million in non-recourse grants to the top 25 applications. In addition
to the Facebook judging committee, this year users will test applications and
vote on their favorites after the first round deadline of August 29, 2008.

Winners from the first fbFund competition were announced today and
include: ConnectedWeddings, CourseFeed by Classtop, GoalCamp, HotBerry,
J2Play, LuckyCal, MyListo, Podclass, Trazzler, and Zimride Carpool App.

4) New Developer Website

Facebook is introducing a new website for Facebook Platform. Improvements
include better navigation and cleaner access to the blog, wiki and forum to
encourage community involvement. Facebook will also start highlighting
social, meaningful and trustworthy application case studies.

For additional information on the announcements made today at f8, please
visit the f8 Press Page at: http://www.facebook.com/f808Press.

About Facebook

Founded in February 2004, Facebook's mission is to give people the power
to share and make the world more open and connected. Anyone can sign up for
Facebook and interact with the people they know in a trusted environment.
Facebook is a privately-held company and is headquartered in Palo Alto,
Calif.

Facebook(R) is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc. Other names may be
trademarks of their respective owners.

Web site: http://www.facebook.com