A post Thursday on the Facebook developer blog announced that in a few weeks, the social network will be launching its "Dashboard" for third-party applications built on its platform. Right now, developers are allowed access to a "sandbox" where they can experiment with the new format and see what will be different.
What will the dashboard, part of a newly organized Facebook home page, bring to ordinary users? For the most part, it cleans up the Facebook app experience for users who may have installed dozens of third-party applications, and separates games--many of the platform's biggest sensations--into their own tab.
Applications that a user has used recently are grouped at the top, displaying news updates like "It's your move in your Scrabble game against Bill Gates." There's also a grid to show which applications that Facebook member's friends have been interacting with recently, along with suggestions for others that they might like based on what they already use. A set of "counters" in the left-hand sidebar shows members that they have updates and alerts from individual applications.
More: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10439103-36.html
What will the dashboard, part of a newly organized Facebook home page, bring to ordinary users? For the most part, it cleans up the Facebook app experience for users who may have installed dozens of third-party applications, and separates games--many of the platform's biggest sensations--into their own tab.
Applications that a user has used recently are grouped at the top, displaying news updates like "It's your move in your Scrabble game against Bill Gates." There's also a grid to show which applications that Facebook member's friends have been interacting with recently, along with suggestions for others that they might like based on what they already use. A set of "counters" in the left-hand sidebar shows members that they have updates and alerts from individual applications.
More: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10439103-36.html