The Power of Facebook API (Using a Powerful Data Mining Tool on the Most Popular Social Network)
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International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT) ISSN: 2278-0181 Vol. 3 Issue 3, March - 2014 The Power of Facebook API (Using a Powerful Data Mining Tool on The Most Popular Social Network) Zubair Ahmed1, Prof. Mausumi Goswami2, Prof. K. Balachandran3 Department of Computer Science & Engineering Christ University Faculty of Engineering Bangalore Abstract— This paper deals with learning the use of the forums, advertise, play games, and create applications; Facebook Graph API for web development through the use of name any social activity and Facebook is already equipped Facebook Applications built using two software development with it. Facebook caters to the needs of virtually everyone kits mainly the PHP SDK and the JavaScript SDK. Alongside and has everything for its users. the Graph API, a tailor made SQL-like language for querying data know as Facebook Query Language will be elaborated 2. It‘s different: Facebook stands out from its competitors, on. The power and usability of these tools and development such as Myspace and Friendster, and has done something kits will be demonstrated through an example which using the which no other social networking site has done before. It Graph API to retrieve the user’s personal information and has introduced the concept of page and millions of third- tokenize and display the various “likes” of the person which party applications, hosted both inside and outside can be used to provide a personalized experience by a third- party web portal for that veryauthorized user. Facebook, which gives users a complete social experience. It has moved beyond the social aspect of strictly being just Index Terms—open graph, graph API, open graph protocol, a site by allowing being in touch with an always-changing javascript sdk, php sdk, fql, paths. network of friends and colleagues. I. INTRODUCTION 3. It inspires: Facebook is not just about sharing a similar interest, it's about networking. It allows users to express If you want to develop applications that connect to the themselves, communicate with others, and createprofiles social web, then Facebook is the place from where you that highlight their talents and experience, and also should begin your journey. Over the past seven years, advertise and market inexpensively. Facebook has completely revolutionized the concept ofIJERT IJERT social networking and transformed the way people interact 4. It‘s not stopping: Facebook has continued to grow from over the web with each other. With an approximate of 800 the start. With the huge increase in its user base, it has been million user base, this is definitely the place you won't continuously updating and upgrading itself with all the want to miss. technological changes happening. Facebook, with the advent of Graph API, Open Graph protocol, Facebook Ads Today, Facebook has become the synonym for social API, and Social Plugins,Facebook Credits has taken care of networking and it has surpassed its competitors, such as the changing technology. Myspace and Friendster, by huge proportions in the world of the social web. The structured form, the interaction 5. It's stated everywhere: The popularity of Facebook has portal, and the perfectly dedicated platform provide users been acknowledged worldwide. with a seamless and easy sharing experience. With more than 800 million active users and integration of ―Facebooking‖ has become the 'key phrase' among people more than 7 million websites, Facebook has a lot of of most of the social domains and areas. From college potential for the third-party application developers. It is an students to the entrepreneurs, everyone happens to be a part attractive platform to promote a particular idea or business of a web-based social graph and Facebook connects them and spread it among the millions of users. Facebook offers all. its users as potential customers, making it fascinating and Since, social networking as a whole has a lot of potentially profitable for the developers. The establishment competition Facebook excels as a social networking site by of the Facebook Developers Platform has provided displaying the following attributes uniquely over other developers with many new and exciting ways to engage competitors: Facebook users. So, the benefits for the developers are as follows: 1. It's simply ―cool!‖: Keep in touch with friends, make groups for entertainment, search for people, view pictures, view videos, send messages, share wall posts, create IJERTV3IS030868 www.ijert.org 1041 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT) ISSN: 2278-0181 Vol. 3 Issue 3, March - 2014 Make money: Apart from advertising, the platform allows relatedtoevery profile — providing the marketer more developers to earn money by running their apps on other opportunities to form a custom experience. websites. It's free: Developing an application is exciting and free. 3. Social plug-ins: The goal of social plug-ins is to extend Allows collection of data: As part of the application, the power of Facebook and socialize the Web with a simple Facebook allows developers to collect selected information pluggable interfaces and modules. There are 8 social plug- from their users. For example, you can collect users' views ins, which are the easiest way for anyone to integrate on a particular interest by using polling. Facebook‘s social features on their website portal. By the addition of a few lines of code to a site, visitors have the Spreading your word through millions of users: Updates by ability to engage with both that site and its Facebook the Facebook application on a user's wall is another presence and perform social actions without ever leaving attractive way to publicize your idea or product. These the site. updates, when viewed by friends and friends of friends, expose your application virally to the millions out there. Integrate with Facebook Portal:Social plugins, such as the Likebox and Recommendation plugin, make it possible to draw more traffic. Building business: An application provides a personalized interface to interact with people and caters to their specific needs. This, in turn, can help to promote and facilitate marketing of certain products and services. Advertisement: You can promote Facebook applications simply and expeditiously. Facebook aims at creating its advertisers more satisfied. The introduction of the CPC advertising, which permits its advertisers to take control on the number ofadvertisements generate per click, is quite its boldest and bravest move. Fig 1. Relationship between objects II. THE OPEN GRAPH III. THE GRAPH API There are three parts to Open Graph. The most commonlyIJERT IJERTThe Graph API is the core of Facebook Platform, providing used are Facebook‘s social plugins. developers a mechanism to read from and write data into 1. The Open Graph Protocol: The Open Graph protocol Facebook. The Facebook‘s Graph API presents a simple allows Web developers to tag their Web pages for the and a more consistent view of the Facebook social graph, social graph. This simple protocol is presented to anybody, also uniformly representing objects in the graph (e.g., and can also be added to any Web-page. It enables Web people, photos, events, and pages) and the connections site owners to identify their pages as ―objects,‖ such as between them (e.g., friend relationships, shared content, people, activities, groups, organizations, products, and photo tags). The Graph takes all the existing data placesand services. All this enables Facebook to index and available on the web and makes it easily accessible through map an ecosystem of all objects, their inter-relations and the API. We can use this API to do varies things such as their connections with Facebook users. make the web more social and find new friends who have certain tastes or are from some new geographical area. The 2. Graph API: Facebook‘s Graph API is designed to web representing Facebook is basically considered as a provide access to every object in Facebook‘s database: bunch of documents showing special characteristics and users, photos, videos, statuses, conversations and their categories, this data is consumable and there is demand to relations with each other. Developers use the Graph API to access this data and social graph and that‘s where the integrate custom applications such as apps, pages, groups, Graph API comes into play. There are entire set of sites, widgets, mobile apps, and use the Facebook database companies in the market whose sole purpose is to make as a social data provider. There are two levels of access. At engagement more effective and efficient in social media the first, developers need to log into Facebook via the and the power behind that is the Graph API. The Graph Graph API to urge the user‘s basic information. At the API by web developers of third party websites to second level, they need extended permissions from the user authenticate users and view specific information of these to grant additional (read: non-public) information. With users through the API for a more special experience which extended permission, the developers can query basic becomes a true game changer in today‘s competitive information and can also get a list of ―Likes‖ environment.There are over 550 million people using IJERTV3IS030868 www.ijert.org 1042 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT) ISSN: 2278-0181 Vol. 3 Issue 3, March - 2014 Facebook around the world, making it the de facto, JSON(JavaScript Object Notation) extensionto convert broadest and the bestreach social network in the world. JSON encoded data to PHP arrays for our logic processing Facebook collects personal profile information such as and data mining. name, school, and a list of friends. Additionally, it is also collecting personal tastes — both through tracking which brands a user follows, but also by remembering which IV REGISTERING APPLICATION AND SETUP products, news stories, or other objects the user ―Like‖, Facebook application can be considered as a code snippet anywhere on the Internet.