When we announced the migration from Credits to local currency payments last June, we also enabled developers to receive Realtime Updates to help reduce latency for their apps and provide asynchronous payment confirmation. We are now requiring developers to subscribe to and honor realtime updates to ensure order fulfillment and receipt of disputes from all payers by May 13, 2014.

February Developer Events for Parse and Facebook

When Parse joined Facebook, we immediately started looking for ways to improve our SDKs by comparing code and learning from each others?

Today we are introducing a new way to more precisely reach your mobile app users with Facebook ads. You can now automatically advertise to people who have taken specific actions within your app through an update to Custom Audiences.

Today, we’re introducing a major update to the App Insights product to help you understand how people interact with your app.

We are running a small test of a new way for developers to monetize their mobile apps - by showing Facebook ads in their apps.

Upcoming events for Facebook and Parse in the month of January.

Games and apps can now give Facebook users a taste of what it's like to use their app by adding videos to their App Details page in App Center.

Platform Updates: New Unity SDK Case Study and Updated iOS Developer Center

Today we are releasing three feature updates to make it even easier for you to create mobile app ads, reach existing users, and drive people back into your app.

We launched mobile app ads for engagement and conversion in October to help mobile app marketers and developers not only grow their apps, but keep users active within them. We wanted to share some early success stories from app developers and explain how developers are using Facebook’s mobile app ads and push notifications with Parse to effectively engage existing app users.

Today we launched Facebook ads to allow you to effectively drive and measure installs for your Facebook desktop apps (canvas apps). We also released a new Android SDK with feature improvements and bug fixes.

Today, we're rolling out the new Like and Share buttons to everyone and introducing flexible width for Embedded Posts on the web.

As the Facebook games ecosystem continues to grow and diversify in 2013, we've seen strong performance from international game developers based out of Europe, the rise of cross-platform games on both web and mobile, and breakout hardcore game hits. Join us as we celebrate Facebook’s 2013 games of the year.

A few highlights from this year’s list of games. Out of a total 23 games:

• 10 come from studios based in Europe or the Middle East
• 8 are cross-platform, integrating with Facebook on web and mobile
• 8 were developed by indie studios
• 7 are mid or hardcore games
• 5 are arcade games
• 5 are casino or slots games

The games of the year were selected based on user ratings, Facebook implementation, growth, and overall quality. We’ve also introduced a Staff Favorites category to share some of the games most played around our offices, and a Hall of Fame category for the games that launched earlier than 2013, but continue to be immensely popular with Facebook gamers. Lastly, while we have singled out one game that stands above the rest by all measurements, we’ve also decided to leave the Best New Games of 2013 list unranked.

Game of the Year 2013

%FB(devsite:markdown-wiki:image { src: "https://fbcdn-dragon-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/851577_746680278694812_736694759_n.jpg", width: 650 })

by Pretty Simple
This hidden object game from a French indie studio combines crime scene investigation with engaging sharing mechanics to create the most successful Facebook game of the year. As detailed in our of the game, Open Graph stories featuring visceral artwork drove organic growth for the game throughout the first half of the year. Content updates and additional cases drove more growth for the game in the second half of the year.

Best New Games of 2013

%FB(devsite:markdown-wiki:grid { cols: 2, alignv: 'top', alignh: 'left', fixed: 'true', content: [' by Broken Bulb Studios
An adorable match-3 game featuring delicious-looking pastries from the developers of the Miscrits, a long-running Facebook game franchise. Rather than switching or line-drawing match mechanics, players drop a single pastry from the top of a display case onto pastries of the same type below.', '', ' by King
A farm-themed match-3 game from the makers of the wildly successful Candy Crush Saga. The bright colors and rounded edges of the art style distinguish Farm Heroes Saga both from other match-3 games and from King’s previous successes in the genre.', '', ' by Product Madness/Aristocrat
This slots game is the first from this London developer since its acquisition late last year by land-based casino company Aristocrat. The high quality graphics and sound speak to the developer’s skill with the category.', '', ' by Zynga
This beautifully designed slots simulation from the FarmVille developer features slot machines based on characters and themes from movies, television, and comic books.', '', ' by Wooga
A richly animated line-drawing match-3 game from the developers of popular Facebook game Diamond Dash. Jelly Splash launched first on mobile before going cross platform on in summer of this year.', '', ' by Disney Interactive
This cooking-themed time management sim puts players in a food truck and sends them to various food-themed “countries” to serve local cuisine. This is the first original IP developer for Facebook that feels like a Disney production, right down to the animated mixing bowl loading screen.', '', ' by Social Point
From the Barcelona-based developer of hit game Dragon City, Monster Legends lets players collect, raise and battle monsters of all kinds against each other. The “Pandalf” panda-wizard monster is an office favorite.', '', ' by Ubisoft
A sequel to 2011’s The Smurfs & Co, French game developer Ubisoft follows up with a more personalized village-building experience featuring the lovable blue Belgian comic characters. Spellbound proves that recognizable brands still carry a lot of weight with players on our platform.', '', ' by Plarium
A real-time strategy game from an Israeli indie developer. This gritty war epic grew rapidly over the summer and still continues to draw a large audience of hardcore players.', '', ' by Qublix
From a Toronto indie studio, Tales is a steampunk-themed solitaire game that treats players with familiar gameplay in a rich fantasy setting.', '', ' by SpinPunch Games
Another hardcore strategy game, this indie studio was founded out of a Stanford University dorm room just last year.', '', ' by EveryDayiPlay
A hardcore strategy game from a Polish indie studio built with the Unity 3D engine. Players build armies of Viking warriors to pillage one another’s homesteads for spoils of gold and beer.', ''], })

Staff Favorites

%FB(devsite:markdown-wiki:grid { cols: 2, alignv: 'top', alignh: 'left', fixed: 'true', content: [' by AFewGoodSoft
This high quality casino game from an indie developer launched in mid 2012 and provides real casino experiences with a unique virtual Vegas concept.', '', ' by Disruptor Beam
A role-playing simulation based both on the megahit "A Song of Ice and Fire" book series and its HBO miniseries "Game of Thrones."', '', ' by Nival
A complex turn-based strategy game that has grown on a few of our staff over the last year.', '', ' by SGN
A cross-platform casual game where players collapse cubes of matching colors to free trapped baby pandas.', '', ' by 7Road/Proficient City
This is the English language version of a popular strategy massively multiplayer online game. Since its launch on Facebook by publisher Proficient City, the game has grown rapidly in size and is one of the most successful core games on the platform to date.', '', ' by Kixeye
One of the earliest real-time strategy titles on Facebook lets players build up armies, attack each other and compete for resources. It’s still played regularly by Facebook staff two years after leaving beta.', ''], })

2013 Hall of Fame

%FB(devsite:markdown-wiki:grid { cols: 2, alignv: 'top', alignh: 'left', fixed: 'true', content: [' by King
The King match-3 game has been a phenomenal success this year entertaining audiences on and mobile devices alike.', '', ' by DoubleDown Interactive/IGT
With a suite of engrossing casino games, DoubleDown keeps players hooked with lively themes and opportunities to compete with others.', '', ' by Zynga
Sequel to one of Facebook\'s earliest farm simulation games, FarmVille 2 features some of the slickest graphics on our platform. Exciting new content keeps players coming back and contributes to this game\'s remarkable performance.', '', ' by Playtika/Caesar’s Interactive
Always fresh and fun, this slots game keeps delighting web and mobile players with its creative categories and engaging graphics.', ''], })

As our offering of services continues to grow, we're constantly looking for ways to improve the developer experience by listening to your feedback. Today, we're announcing a redesign of our developer site so that it's easier to find the things you need to integrate Facebook into your app or website. Some developers will see the changes immediately and the site will fully be available to everyone in a few weeks.

Our developer site is our primary means of interacting with our community, and we want it to be as useful and as clear as possible. It is the entry point for you to learn about integrating with Facebook. You can discover the features and products available to you, as well as access the tools, dashboards and resources to manage your apps.

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The new design and interface will make it easier for you to:

• Manage your apps and configure Facebook integrations
• Navigate our improved documentation
• Submit your app to Facebook App Center with a simplified flow
• Find and report bugs with a faster response turnaround
• Learn about the latest updates and news relevant to you on our homepage

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When you first visit the new site, you'll be prompted to take a quick tour of the changes so you can learn more. As always, we'll keep listening to your feedback for ways to improve the Facebook developer experience.

The Facebook and Parse teams are hosting and attending some great events in December. We’ll have team members at the following events this month:

AppNationV – December 3-4, 2013 – San Francisco, CA

Deb Liu, Director of Platform Monetization at Facebook, will be opening the event as the feature keynote for AppNation V, at 9 am on December 3rd. In addition, Peter Yang, Product Marketing Manager, will lead a workshop on how to build and grow your app using Facebook Login at 12:45pm on December 3rd.

London Parse Developer Meetup - December 4, 2013 – London, England

Register today to join us for the first of our London Parse Meetups. Just like our US meetups, we'll have beer, food, and the opportunity to meet other developers from the community and members of the Parse and Facebook teams.

Bay Area Parse Developer Meetup – December 5, 2013 – San Francisco, CA

This month's Bay Area Parse Meetup will take place at General Assembly in San Fransisco. We'll have a pizza truck, beer and wine, and great talks from the Parse team. Parse Software Engineer Thomas Bouldin will give a talk on building "psychic" apps using Parse Push, and Software Engineer Stanley Want will speak about building scalable apps on the Parse platform. Register today to meet other developers from the community as well as members of the Parse and Facebook teams, and learn more about building on Parse.

AngelHack AppHack - December 8, 2013 - San Jose, CA

We're looking forward to participating in the final AngelHack AppHack hackathon for the year with developers around the world. Developer Advocates from the Parse and Facebook Platform teams will be giving introductions to Parse and answering any questions you may have about your integrations at the San Jose event.

LeWeb – December 10-12, 2013 – Paris, France

Join the Parse and Facebook teams at Le Web in Paris, France. We have a few Facebook leaders speaking at the 10th annual conference: Ilya Sukhar, Parse CEO, will be talking about Parse's origin and how it's changing the way Facebook offers developer services; Chris Daniels, VP of Business Development, will cover Facebook's strategy around partnerships and the shift to mobile; and Sriram Krishnan, Platform Product Manager, will discuss the success thus far of mobile app ads. We'll be in town all week so please email us at if you'd like to meet and chat.

We look forward to seeing you at one or more of the events we're attending this month!

Earlier this year, we posted about the . Since then, many developers have mentioned that people who log in with Facebook are more engaged and monetize better than people who sign up through other options. Below, we've highlighted a few examples of apps that are seeing strong results from using Facebook Login.

Applauze: Facebook Login users are 27% more likely to be repeat ticket buyers

, a Parse-powered app, lets people easily discover and buy tickets for concerts, sports, and other events. Applauze found that, compared to people that use other sign up options, Facebook Login users:

• Account for 70% of their top 100 spenders
• Return to the app 20% more often and are 27% more likely to be repeat buyers
• Spend more per order on average

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Threadflip: Facebook Login users spend twice as much time in the app

offers a simple and intuitive way for people to buy women's fashion. Threadflip found that Facebook Login users:

• Spend twice as much time using the app
• Are 38% more likely to make a purchase in their first week of using the app and 50% more likely to make a repeat purchase in their first month
• Perform 3x as many social actions (likes, follows or comments), and are 2x more likely to invite users from their social networks
• Have a 30% higher average lifetime value

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Cooliris: Facebook Login users are 50% more likely to initiate conversations in the app

is a personal media hub for people to view all their photos in one place and share in private groups. Cooliris found that Facebook Login users:

• Are 50% more likely to share their photos and invite 2x more friends to groups
• Are 50% quicker to initiate Cooliris conversations, a private messaging service within the app

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Swell Radio: Facebook Login users listen and interact more

lets people listen to personalized news and information radio stations from their mobile device. According to Swell Radio, Facebook Login users:

• Listen on average 8% longer per session
• Like and bookmark tracks more frequently

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Learn how you can integrate Facebook Login today and follow our Login checklist to drive up your app's sign up conversions.

The Facebook and Parse teams are hosting and attending some great events in December. We’ll have team members at the following events this month:

AppNationV – December 3-4, 2013 – San Francisco, CA

Deb Liu, Director of Platform Monetization at Facebook, will be opening the event as the feature keynote for AppNation V, at 9 am on December 3rd. In addition, Peter Yang, Product Marketing Manager, will lead a workshop on how to build and grow your app using Facebook Login at 12:45pm on December 3rd.

London Parse Developer Meetup - December 4, 2013 – London, England

Register today to join us for the first of our London Parse Meetups. At this meetup, we'll hear from Parse Developer Advocate Hector Ramos about and Facebook Connor Treacy about . Just like our US meetups, we'll have beer, food, and the opportunity to meet other developers from the community and members of the Parse and Facebook teams.

Bay Area Parse Developer Meetup – December 5, 2013 – San Francisco, CA

This month's Bay Area Parse Meetup will take place at General Assembly in San Fransisco. We'll have a pizza truck, beer and wine, and great talks from the Parse team. Parse Software Engineer Thomas Bouldin will give a talk on building "psychic" apps using Parse Push, and Software Engineer Stanley Want will speak about building scalable apps on the Parse platform. Register today to meet other developers from the community as well as members of the Parse and Facebook teams, and learn more about building on Parse.

AngelHack AppHack - December 8, 2013 - San Jose, CA

We're looking forward to participating in the final AngelHack AppHack hackathon for the year with developers around the world. Developer Advocates from the Parse and Facebook Platform teams will be giving introductions to Parse and answering any questions you may have about your integrations at the San Jose event.

LeWeb – December 10-12, 2013 – Paris, France

Join the Parse and Facebook teams at Le Web in Paris, France. We have a few Facebook leaders speaking at the 10th annual conference: Ilya Sukhar, Parse CEO, will be talking about Parse's origin and how it's changing the way Facebook offers developer services; Chris Daniels, VP of Business Development, will cover Facebook's strategy around partnerships and the shift to mobile; and Sriram Krishnan, Platform Product Manager, will discuss the success thus far of mobile app ads. We'll be in town all week so please email us at if you'd like to meet and chat.

We look forward to seeing you at one or more of the events we're attending this month!

Thank you to the over 350 attendees to Mobile Developer Day, Presented by Parse + Facebook, for joining us last week at Facebook Headquarters for the event! We're happy to announce that the videos are now available below and at the .

The Parse and Facebook teams and speakers loved meeting current – and future – Parse and Facebook developers and we hope that everyone who came walked away with a greater understanding of how to build and grow their apps with the two platforms. After a morning of informative talks from Jocelyn Goldfein, Jason Russell, Christine Abernathy, Bear Douglas, Stephanie Shum, and Eddie O'Neil, attendees participated in a 4 hour hackathon that produced 32 awesome projects. We loved them all, but had to pick just 4 to win the day's prizes. The winners, who received free Parse Pro and Facebook Mobile App Ads credits at each level as well as iPad minis for the first place team members, were:

• Eat@ developed by Matthew Kuhlke, Chris Kung, and Ben Kim
• Opine developed by Dan Treiman, Peace Asukwo, Anas Alamoudi, Jay Chulani, and Ben Morrow
• Hive Here developed by Nik Kalyani, S. Sriram, Yahui Jin, and Prashant Khanduri
• Pictogram developed by Seth Piezas

If you weren't able to join us for Mobile Developer Day, we hope that some of you will be able to attend our upcoming December Parse Meetups in London, San Francisco, and Paris, or at one of our many events coming up in 2014. You can also see pictures from the events and view the full videos from the day below.

Below is the full video series from Mobile Developer Day 2013:

Mobile at Facebook by Jocelyn Goldfein, Engineering Director, Facebook

We recently introduced a new design for the Like and Share buttons. We're seeing positive results from the new design and have started rolling it out to the Follow button and the Like Box plugin. We also are releasing a new iOS SDK with feature improvements and bug fixes, removing a policy change for Requests that was previously communicated and are updating our browser requirements for our JavaScript SDK. In addition, we have a new advertising campaign structure coming to Facebook in 2014.

New design for the Follow button and the Like Box plugin

Similar to the Like and Share buttons, the Follow button and the Like Box plugin will also be updated with our new design as follows:

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For more details, visit our documentation for the Follow button and the Like Box plugin.

iOS SDK 3.10

We're releasing an updated version of our SDK that includes several feature improvements and some bug fixes to enhance stability. These include:

• Updated FBSession to receive permissions granted to your app at the time of login without requiring a permissions refresh. This enables your app to more reliably detect the current permission state of your app. This applies for any login flow except the iOS 6+ integrated authentication.
• Ability to set the selection property of the FBFriendPickerViewController that makes it easy to pre-select friends.
• Ability to set the login behavior for the FBLoginView control.

For more details and a list of other updates in this release, visit our change log. You can here.

Removing policy change for "Select All" and "Pre-Select"

We are removing our previously announced policy change regarding select all and pre-select for Requests, which was set to go into effect on January 8, 2014. We may revisit this policy change in the future, but will also work on other ways to improve user engagement and sentiment for Requests.

Changed browser requirements for the JavaScript SDK

In order for the JavaScript SDK to be able to communicate with Facebook, we now require either native support for HTML5 postMessage, or support for Flash, minimum version 8.0.24. As part of this change, we are no longer supporting the use of the channelUrl initialization option to provide a fallback mechanism.

Campaign structure updates: a better way to organize, optimize and measure ads

We recently shared an update with Facebook Preferred Marketing Developers (PMDs) about a new campaign structure coming to Facebook in 2014. This new structure will make it easier for advertisers to organize, optimize and measure the performance of their ads by introducing a third level to our current campaign structure. The updated structure will include levels for campaign, ad set and ad.

We'll bring these features across all our client-facing ad interfaces in the first half of 2014 -- including the Ads Create Tool, Ads Manager, Power Editor -- and third-party client-facing ad interfaces built by PMDs, FBX partners and Mobile Measurement Partners. These changes won't affect advertisers this year.

Here's what advertisers will be able to do after the update:

• Specify a campaign objective to make all of its ads serve that objective, and to improve optimization and reporting.
• Use multiple ad sets, each with their own budget and schedule controls, to optimize spend and delivery within each audience segment or placement.
• Get better control and aggregate stats, including total reach, at the campaign level.

We'll provide additional details as we get closer to launch. Until then, please remember that these changes will not affect advertisers this year.