Building applications that provide Social Networking capabilities is not building integration to Facebook. Recently I have been working on some web parts that integrate to the Facebook API using a .NET library called the Facebook Developer Toolkit. When I tell other people that I am working on Facebook web parts I usually get 1 of 2 responses.
- The first response might be, "Well I don't really care for Facebook and don't see why you would use it in the first place". Well honestly they are not that polite and respond with words I shouldn't repeat.
- Second I hear, "I know someone that is building some Facebook web parts".
Let's just assume for the first response that you understand why you would integrate SharePoint with Facebook and have a real business need already in your organization. For the second response I find that the statement is usually not true. In fact most of the people that I talk with that are working on "Facebook web parts" are really just modifying the MySite templates and pages. When they explain to other people what they are working on they tell them they are working on "Facebook like" work.
When you are talking to customers, ISVs, or other developers and they say they are working on Facebook like web parts, make sure and ask if they are actually doing integration to Facebook or if they are building web parts that take advantage of the SharePoint User Profile.
Here are the current web parts that are completed for Integration to Facebook
- ReceiverFacebookPart
- UserProfileFacebookPart
- FriendsFacebookPart
