Facebook® Application Development For Dummies®
Facebook® Application Development For Dummies®
Copyright © 2011 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2011926323
ISBN: 978-0-470-76873-0
Manufactured in the United States of America
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About the Author
Jesse Stay began his career at age 10 as a developer writing BASIC programs in his spare time. He would frequently be found copying programs from the back of 3-2-1 Contact magazines and reading ahead, way ahead, in the books of his computer programming classes in high school. In third grade, Stay won third place in his elementary school computer fair, going against the likes of kids several years older than he was. For his Boy Scout Eagle Scout project, Stay wrote a computer program in Pascal to help track the blood types of those in his local church congregation.
At the same time, as an avid entrepreneur, Stay was always looking for the next way to make money — from the lemonade stands as a kid, to selling T-shirts from the artwork of others in his high school art class, to his own lawn-mowing business. He always had a knack for making money “grow on trees,” something his parents always told him wasn’t possible.
Later on in life, Stay worked under the direction of the VP of marketing at CWDKids.com. It was there that he was put in charge of helping with the affiliate marketing and search engine marketing programs for the company. He built many scripts in both Perl and VBA to help in this effort. Later, at Media General (a publishing company, owner of many news organizations throughout the Southeast), Stay worked to make print classifieds profitable online by developing creative techniques to help customers find what they were looking for. He took that knowledge to BackCountry.com, where he built an innovative ad management platform to build and buy thousands of ads, saving the company thousands while increasing sales.
It was the combination of his background in SEM, affiliate, and classified ad tools and management; his entrepreneurial spirit; and his passion for programming that drove Stay to realize the power of social networking APIs and Facebook Platform. Stay quickly realized that with social networking, his software could sell itself.
In 2007, Stay left his full-time job to start his own consulting company. Since then, Stay has written three books on Facebook and Facebook development; consulted for some of the most successful brands in social media; opened his own startup, SocialToo.com, which Stay still runs today; and built a successful blog with thousands of followers. Stay has also written developer documentation online for Facebook itself as a contractor. Even today, Stay believes in making money “grow on trees” through entrepreneurship and savvy business techniques.
Stay maintains and administers numerous Facebook Pages with fans numbered in the hundreds of thousands and Twitter accounts with followers in the tens of thousands, and he has written for some of the top blogs on the Internet. Three of those include InsideFacebook.com, AllFacebook.com, and LouisGray.com.
Stay has been named by Mashable.com as one of 20 developers to follow on Twitter and one of 10 entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter. Stay was also named by Entrepreneur magazine as one of 20 developers to follow on Twitter by Mashable’s Ben Parr.
Stay currently works (he calls it service) as social media architect and manager of social strategy and solutions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons). In his current position, Stay gets to help build relationships and social technologies for some of the largest humanitarian organizations in the world. In addition to that, Stay works with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on its social strategy, as well as FamilySearch.org, which has the world’s largest database of linked individuals (Stay proudly calls it the world’s largest social network). Stay believes firmly in using “social” technologies to build fruitful relationships that have a strong effect on the world.
Stay has keynoted for major conferences and has spoken all over the United States. He has spoken at some of the largest Facebook conferences in the world, and he loves to share with others how they can learn just a “little more” to gain that extra edge on Facebook strategy. Stay has spoken and continues to speak for both business professionals and marketers, and developers, and has a knack for making both audiences come out enlightened.
In his spare time, Stay likes to play trumpet, work in his garden, hike, mountain bike, and travel the world. Stay speaks fluent Thai and loves international culture. Stay has five kids and a beautiful wife and, most of all, enjoys spending time at home with his family.
Dedication
To Rebecca, Elizabeth, Thomas, Joseph, Jesse III, and Baby on the way. Without them, this couldn’t have been possible. I’m especially grateful to my wife, who has shown great patience in allowing me to spend almost a year writing this, all while I was working a full-time job, running a company on the side, speaking, and consulting, along with everything else I do. She keeps me going, and she continually amazes me how she’s able to support me in everything I do. It is she who inspires me to keep on pushing harder. She made this possible.
Author’s Acknowledgments
If you’re not included here, I’ve probably thanked you in person already. If not, I apologize, because it’s impossible to include everyone who made this possible. Thanks to my family for supporting me along the way. Thanks to my boss, and those who work with me, for being flexible enough to allow me to finish this while working a full-time job (and running a company on the side!).
A special thank-you to each and every blog or news organization that has ever covered me or my companies and books over the years: Mashable, TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, TheNextWeb, Venturebeat, New York Times, to name a few — I’m very grateful. I’ve tried to say thank you back by including each and every one under http://delicious.com/jessestay/coverage.
Thanks to some of my dearest advisors and mentors over the years. I truly look up to them, and they have made much of what I do possible through their advice and shared knowledge — they are all dear friends: Guy Kawasaki, Jason Alba, Louis Gray, Rodney Rumford, and Jeremiah Owyang, to name a few. I treasure each chance I get with them to learn something new.
Thanks to Stephan Heilner and Ray Hunter for their contributions to the mobile chapter. They are two of the best mobile developers I know, and they were invaluable in helping to make that chapter interesting.
Thanks to Katie Feltman, Christopher Morris, and the entire team at Wiley for being so patient with me as I wrote this. The Wiley team has been one of the most pleasant publishers to date to work with, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my experience with them thus far. A special thanks to Allan Carroll, one of the best Facebook developers I know, who graciously was willing to help with the tech edits. Be sure to try out his new service, Piick.com, if you get a chance.
Lastly, thank you to my mother and father. They brought me into this world, and I’ve treasured the advice they’ve given me over the years to make me the person who I am. You are two of the smartest individuals I know.
Publisher’s Acknowledgments
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Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies
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Mary Bednarek, Executive Acquisitions Director
Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director
Publishing for Consumer Dummies
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Composition Services
Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services
