Facebook planning to launch Open Graph actions tomorrow?
All Things Digital says that at the company's scheduled press event tomorrow, it will unveil the first group of applications launching via Open Graph.
Back in September at the F8 Conference, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company would deliver a "frictionless" experience across the Web through applications. And starting tomorrow, he plans to make good on that promise, according to a new report.
The world's largest social network will be holding a press event in San Francisco tomorrow unveiling the first group of Open Graph actions that share user activities from outside the site with its users, All Things Digital is reporting, citing sources. The sources didn't say how many actions, which are basically simple applications, will launch as part of Facebook's Open Graph initiative.
The focus behind Facebook's applications idea is to combine the "actions" users engage in both on the world's largest social network and off, into a single spot in their Open Graph. So, if a user is listening to a song, watching a television show, or reading a news article across the Web, it can be shared on Facebook for friends to see. Those friends can then join in and do the same. At F8, Zuckerberg said that the idea could create "a completely new class of social apps than what was ever possible before."
Of course, all this doesn't happen automatically. Facebook will require users to opt-in to share from a site. After doing so, all their activities on that site will be shared with friends back on Facebook until he or she decides to turn it off.
At F8, Facebook said that all the content shared won't show up in a person's news feed. Instead, the data will be found in their Timeline, with the ultimate goal of creating a visual record of what a person has done over the course of several years.
Facebook made its Timeline available last year. The feature is currently opt-in, but the social network is widely expected to transition all accounts to Timeline in the coming days. As All Things Digital's Liz Gannes points out, that rollout would likely coincide with Open Graph Actions' launch, since the applications require Timeline to work.
Facebook announced in late December that it would start approving Open Graph applications this month. Once it's approved, the developer will receive a notification from Facebook telling them when they can start offering it to users.
Facebook did not immediately respond to CNET's request for confirmation of the All Things Digital report.