At the 2014 Facebook F8 Conference in San Francisco April 30th, 2014, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced several changes to Facebook. The changes are aimed to improve Facebook on mobile platforms by giving better security privacy, better user experience and providing mobile advertising network that target users only from the information they share.
Since mobile devices are owned by more and more people, Facebook is linked to almost countless of other apps and websites and share users information between them. The new changes is meant to make Facebook a more acceptable login method for hundreds of millions of people who are using their Facebook identity to personalize apps.
Calling the initiative "People First," Zuckerberg laid out these changes.
Facebook will allow users to be able to turn on/off the sharing of specific data with apps. For example, if you don't want an app to know who your friends are, or when your birthday is, or what your location is, you'll be able to turn those items off independently.
And under the new plan, Zuckerberg said, "now everyone has to choose to share their own data with an app themselves." This should prevent people who use Facebook only to share information with their close friends from finding their information shared by their friends with other apps.
Facebook-using apps will now be able to offer trial versions that don’t require you to connect to your Facebook account at first. These apps will be able to present a "Log In Anonymously" button. And after trying the app that's not connected to your account, you will be able to connect it to Facebook - if you like.
To enhance privacy a bit further, Facebook will synchronize usage data across devices for people using an app in anonymous mode.
Facebook AppLinks
To ease Facebook in a lot of ways, the social network announced AppLinks that allows easy app-to-app linking. Clicking links within mobile apps can be a difficult because of its small screen size. And people might go from a streamlined social app to a webpage that is not optimized for mobile devices. Facebook's AppLinks tool aims to change that, as developers can seamlessly send you from one app to another via a simple HTML code.
The tool that is a free and open-source, is supported by Dropbox, Spotify, Pinterest, and Hulu. AppLinks is designed to support all major mobile platforms, including iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.
With lots of major companies supporting it, AppLinks could change the way we browse on mobile. With the ability to quickly 'hop' between dedicated apps for email, shopping, games, and entertainment.
Facebook Audience Network
At its F8 developer conference, Facebook also launches its mobile advertising network with the ability to target users across apps they use while targeting them based on the information they have shared with Facebook.
Facebook Audience Network allows brands to advertise on third-party apps using Facebook's detailed targeting data. The network, which Facebook has been testing since 2012, will let advertisers use both standard banner ads and custom units. It will compete with companies like AdMob, InMobi, and Twitter, which has taken a similar approach to mobile advertising after acquiring MoPub in 2013.
Mobile growth is still growing. And with roughly 59 percent of Facebook's revenue comes from mobile, Zuckerberg said that Facebook has been responsible for 1 billion app installations to date. "I'm really excited about this Audience Network," said Zuckerberg to developers. "This is really the first time that we're going to help you monetize in a serious way on mobile."