Facebook is replacing the current Apps and Games Dashboard with a new App Center feature that sorts Facebook apps by category and user ratings.

Detailed on Facebook’s developer blog, App Center will be viewable from Facebook.com, mobile web and Facebook’s iOS and Android apps when it rolls out over the next few weeks. Clicking on an app from within App Center directs a user to that app’s native platform, where the user can install the app. The new feature also introduces app detail pages, which is where users will land when typing an app name into Facebook’s search function. Apps are also filtered into additional categories for “top grossing,” “recommended” and “trending,” as well as module that displays friends’ apps.

In order for an app to appear in App Center, developers must follow a set of submission guidelines and wait for review from Facebook. The company says it will use a variety of signals — including user feedback and engagement within apps — to determine whether or not an app will be listed in App Center. Details about how to submit an app to be listed are available here.

As we can see in the screenshot below, star ratings figure prominently into App Center’s categorization. Facebook has been playing with the ratings system a great deal in the last three months, introducing new modules to solicit more ratings from users. A new app ratings metric is being added to Insights so that developers can track user ratings over time.

This is a reversal of the social network’s position on app discovery a year ago, when Facebook relied on algorithmic discovery of new apps. By creating a centralized app hub, Facebook hopes to drive more growth to higher-quality apps — and to new categories of app that are currently difficult to find. The social network will also likely drive more mobile app installs.

Facebook is also announcing a new paid apps model, though it still expects the bulk of transactions to be driven by in-app purchases. Interested developers are being asked to contact Facebook directly for more details.

App Center will go live in the coming weeks.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Usabilla, makers of usability testing tools for websites, is today launching a new mobile tool that lets companies test how their apps or mobile websites perform on the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch or Android devices.

The new tool overlays questions or notes on top of the mobile app or website’s user interface, like “where would you click to filter the search results?,” for example. The testers can then tap a part of the app or mobile site’s webpage in response.

As the testing takes place, Usabilla’s mobile web UX (user experience) tool collects the aggregated feedback from the participants, analyzes it, and presents it to the site’s designers using charts and heatmaps.

To set up the tests, designers and developers must either provide the mobile URL or a screenshot of the mobile app. It does not support live app testing, however. But the tool does have a unique social feature – it lets you recruit participants to join the test by posting links to Facebook and Twitter.

You can see an example of the tool in action in the video below or take a sample test for yourself by clicking here.

Usabilla raised $1 million in funding earlier this summer, in a round led by Dutch venture fund Boralis and five undisclosed investors. The company’s customers now include Disney, Levi’s and Electronic Arts.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

The last Platform Update to the Facebook Developer Blog announced a mandatory migration to a new spec of OAuth 2.0. It only requires a small code change, but all developers must implement it by November 5th. Facebook also noted that a slightly updated version of the PHP SDK will be released tomorrow, August 9th. This week, Facebook also provided a walk through of how developers can allow users to upload videos to their profiles through an application.

Facebook is currently migrating to OAuth 2.0, a secure authorization protocol that allows applications to keep User IDs and access tokens private when transmitted. All developers must migrate their apps to OAuth 2.0 by October 1st.

Facebook jointly publishes the OAuth spec with Yahoo! and Microsoft. A change to this spec necessitates a changes to Facebook’s auth APIs will also change, which in turn requires a minor change to API calls.

As of November 5th, 2011, auth API calls that previously used included “code_and_token” will instead need to use “code%20token“. All other elements of auth API calls remain identical.

In other OAuth news, tomorrow Facebook will release v3.1 of its PHP SDK. The OAuth 2.0-ready versions of the PHP and JavaScript SDKs were initially slated for a July 1st launch. However the PHP SDK was finished early and released in late May, while technical difficulties delayed the JS SDK until late July.

During the delay of the JS SDK, there were apparently some improvements made upon what was released in the v3 of the PHP SDK. The new v3.1 PHP SDK update to be released tomorrow will “leverage the recent changes to the JavaScript SDK”. Developers can download the update on GitHub.

Facebook has been publishing a series of how-to guides that explain how developers can add advanced functionality to and optimize performance of their apps and websites. Previously, Facebook published a how-to for optimizing social plugin performance. The guides consolidate clear instructions so developers don’t have to dig through forums or use trial and error to achieve the functionality they desire.

The How-To: Use the Graph API to Upload a Video (iOS) guide explains that by allowing users to upload video through an app, that app can gain new users since a link to it is included alongside video content. The guide covers how to:

1. Start a new project
2. Add a sample video to your project
3. Set up the Facebook class
4. Set up permissions and the authentication handler
5. Setup up the video upload Graph API call
6. Handle the results
7. Add single sign-on (SSO) support
8. Test the app
9. Set video privacy

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Last Friday’s Platform Update on the Facebook Developer’s Blog included announcements regarding the migration to POST for canvas applications, a Javascript SDK for testing in the beta tier, and the termination of the ability to turn normal user accounts into test accounts. It also noted that Facebook has begun enforcing its policy that developers must only use approved ad networks, it has fixed a settings bug in the new version of its Comments Box social plugin released last week, and is recommending that those using the old FBML comments plugin upgrade to this new iFrame version.

Starting March 12th, all canvas applications must embed User IDs in a HTTP POST body to ensuring they aren’t exposed in the HTTP Referrer header. POST for Canvas is the solution Facebook developed for a much publicized issue with third-parties gaining access to User IDs.

All applications on Facebook.com must use this protocol or they will error out. To test the change, developers can go to the Advanced tab of the Developer app, and enable POST for Canvas under Migrations.

Each Monday, Facebook pushes code changes to a beta tier that will go into effect Tuesday afternoon, allowing developers to test their apps for breakage. Facebook will now offer a US english beta version of the JavaScript SDK each Monday that developers can point their apps towards for testing.

If developers experience bugs that can be reproduced on the beta tier but not the live version of Facebook, they should report them with the mark Beta Tier for expedited resolution before the code is pushed. The beta JavaScript SDK should help minimize breakage from weekly pushes, improving Facebook’s standing with the developer community.

Previously, Facebook all0wed developers to convert normal user accounts into test accounts that can’t interact with the rest of the Facebook user base or be turned back into normal accounts. To prevent users from accidentally being turned into test accounts, Facebook has removed the conversion option.

Now, developers must create test accounts via the Graph API using the updated documentation. This should reduce the incidence of horror stories where developers lose all their friend connections because they mistakenly converted themselves into a test account assuming they could change back.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook