Thursday, September 11, 2008

Facebook Applications

Hi Everyone,

Facebook, with more than 100 million users, is a great place to publish your application and get some attention. Just like many of you out there, I just wanted to try creating an application and see how people like it. I didn't however want to put any money into making or supporting such an endeavor. Good hosting services cost a bit of money. I might consider getting one if my application becomes large and starts making some income for me.

Ok coming to the point. Google AppEngine is free, not without restrictions of course, but they are manageable. After some googling, trial and error, I managed to host an application in Google AppEngine and hook it up to Facebook.

Basic things you need to know and have if you want to do this.
1. Google AppEngine account (used to accept requests according to a waiting list, not sure how it is now)
2. Need to know Python
3. Facebook Account (dah!!)

Here is a neat application I have created. Its a small game of guessing the outcomes of future events in a stock trading type environment. Its completely running on Google AppEngine

http://apps.facebook.com/guessahead

Basically this tutorial is a easier version of the actual tutorial found at Python - Facebook Wiki

Summary of the tutorial:
1. Using Facebook API in Python
2. Setup Google AppEngine
3. Setup Facebook

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email at support@sparklextreme.com.

1 comment:

Allen Brayan said...

Thanks for posting this article. I am definitely tired of struggling to find relevant and intelligent commentary on this subject. Everyone nowadays seem to go to extremes to either drive home their viewpoint or suggest that everybody else in the globe is wrong. Thanks for your concise and relevant insight.

Facebook Developer