Over 350 million users access Facebook from a mobile device every month. Facebook Platform lets you bring these users and their friends to your mobile apps, creating a more engaging and personalized experience for your users.
Facebook is full of announcements today. First came the release of their iPad app, now it appears that Facebook have released what we think is Project Spartan bringing Facebook in HTML5.
Releasing Project Spartan means that Facebook now enables a seamless experience across a wide range of platforms. Even though the screenshot below actually looks like the new iPad App – check out the URL bar. Facebook have been working with a variety of Facebook Application developers to bring all the applications to the new standard, ensuring that they work across multipledevices and to make sure that the desktop experience is the same as the mobile.
Since this is written in HTML5 and is accessed via a browser, Facebook can now have control over how you access content without being tied to the limitations of manufacturer’s *cough*Apple*cough*
Yes, Facebook is about to launch a mobile platform aimed squarely at working on the iPhone (and iPad). But it won’t be distributed through the App Store as a native application, it will be entirely HTML5-based and work in Safari. Why? Because it’s the one area of the device that Facebook will be able to control (or mostly control).
As of right now, there are believed to be 80 or so outside developers working with Facebook on Project Spartan. These teams are working on apps for the platform that range from games to news-reading apps. Some of the names should be familiar: Zynga and Huffington Post (owned by our parent AOL), for example. The goal is to have these apps ready to roll in the next few weeks for a formal unveiling shortly thereafter.
Work has been going on for at least a couple of months, with Facebook putting in a lot of work before that. So some of the apps may not be fully polished at launch. It may be more of a “look what we can do” type thing
For the time being, the only application I am able to use as a Facebook HTML5 app is the Flixster application, which in itself is quite impressive. See the screenshot below:
To get to it, simply visit www.touch.facebook.com