Book excerpt: With more than 250 million active users, Facebook is the world’s #1 social networking platform. But developing successful Facebook applications presents unique challenges, both technical and nontechnical. Now, two of the world’s most experienced Facebook developers show you exactly how to meet those challenges. Essential Facebook Development offers insider guidance and up-to-the-minute best practices for the entire application lifecycle: design, coding, testing, distribution, post-launch monitoring, metrics, and even application marketing. Using extensive real-world examples, John Maver and Cappy Popp reveal why some Facebook applications succeed brilliantly while others fail. Next, they walk through building a complete application using every major component of the Facebook platform. Maver and Popp thoroughly cover Facebook’s most important new features, including Facebook Connect, and provide extensive information available nowhere else–from measuring application success to monetization. Coverage includes Thorough introductions to Facebook’s current architecture, integration points, and development technologies Discussion of successful Facebook applications–and what makes them successful What every developer must know about Facebook’s Terms of Service Creating an effective application infrastructure Creating canvas pages with FBML and IFrames Adding support for profiles, application tabs, and messaging Incorporating JavaScript into Facebook applications with FBJS Integrating Facebook into external sites with Facebook Connect and the Facebook JavaScript Client Library Debugging techniques for Facebook applications Spreading, monitoring, and tuning applications