In late 2010, Facebook announced its plan to deprecate FBML as a Facebook page administration platform over time and move to iframes. This past March 2011, it followed up this statement with the announcement of a full transition to iFrames, phasing out FBML.
Since March 2011, page admins have not been able to create any new FBML apps, but FBML apps which were already in existence remained functional until the deprecation was scheduled to begin.
Facebook has now announced at it’s most recent f8 Developer Conference in September, 2011, that:
1. FBML will no longer be supported by Facebook beginning January 1, 2012. (This means no support and no bug fixes)
2. The final official end date when all FBML tabs will cease to work and will be removed from Facebook is set for June 1, 2012.
This June 1, 2012 date is when any remaining FBML apps inside of Facebook will cease to function.
The time has come for those last holdouts to fully transition to iFrames and depart from the FBML coding completely, and TabSite is an ideal alternative!
4 KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR BUSINESS OWNERS
1. What the heck is FBML and why do I care?
The answer is that, now, you don’t need to care, unless you already knew what FBML because you were using FBML on your Facebook Pages. If you fall in the group that doesn’t need to know because you don’t have any FBML tabs on your fan page, then feel free to skip down to number 2!
FBML
FBML is Facebook’s original framework for serving custom content on fan page tabs. This content is served by Facebook, which, in short, means the user’s browser never hits the app developer’s server directly. Instead, Facebook requests the content from the app developer’s server, parses and filters it, and sends it to the browser for display. The result is content served by Facebook on custom tabs.
Static FBML App
The Static FBML app was an application provided by Facebook that enabled the creation of FBML based Facebook page tabs. To use the application, page admins simply added the app to their page, and then customize the content by coding using FBML code techniques.
Along with FBML, the Static FBML app will no longer be supported (no help) starting January 1, 2012, and will NO LONGER WORK on pages beginning June 1, 2012.
2. What is Facebook’s preferred method for adding custom tabs to Fan Pages?
iFrame Apps
iFrame Apps are Facebook’s accepted framework for serving content on canvas pages as well as fan page tabs. Content is served directly by the application developer’s server, rather than being proxied by Facebook’s servers. Because the page is hosted externally of Facebook, it can render HTML, CSS and even Javascript just like any external web page does, which was not the same with FBML. iFrame Apps were launched in March of 2011 and are a big improvement.
All TabSite fan page tabs use iFrame Apps.
3. I’m not a coder and yet I want a nice, custom fan page. What should I do?
TabSite is a great solution for small and medium sized businesses wanting to easily customize their fan page without learning to do any coding. With a easy to use drag-n-build system, TabSite is easy to navigate and has a full suite of widgets and tools including ability to:
- Add Videos,
- Add/Edit Content using a WYSIWYG editor,
- Create Photo SlideShows
- Embed E-mail Sign-up forms
- Add your Blog and Twitter feeds
- Create a fan-gating mechanism with our Like-Gate tool
- and more!
4. Don’t wait! January 1 FBML is no longer Supported. June 1, 2012, FBML ceases to work. Now is the time to changeover to a solution like TabSite.
Visit www.TabSite.com for more details on our solution or go here for Pricing.