Facebook releases new APIs

Facebook is looking to unleash a new wave of applications to get users creating and sharing more content.

The successful social networking website has just launched a number of APIs (application programming interfaces).  This allows developers, such as Refreshed Media, to access content on Facebook such as status, notes, links and video, and use it in an application. 

An example of a Facebook application is the successful Laptop Drop Refreshed developed for RM.com.

According to a post on the Facebook developers blog "Specifically, your applications can now directly access all of a user's status, links and notes via new methods and FQL calls. Your application will have access to any status, notes or links from the active user or their friends that are currently visible to the active user. In addition, we're opening new APIs for you to post links, create notes, or upload videos for the current user, and we've made setting a user's status easier."

In announcing the move towards greater openness, Facebook says it has seen "increasing engagement" among its users, more than 15 million of whom are updating their status daily and who are sharing more than 24 million links per month. The social network has 150 million active members.

Earlier this week, Facebook indicated further that they are on the path towards being open by joining the board of the OpenID Foundation, whose designs on a universal log-in standard are something of a rival to the similar Facebook Connect.