The Reason Facebook Stopped FBML And Switched To IFrames

19 replies
I just finished a mastermind session with a group of my partners and was shocked to find out that most did not have a clue as to why Facebook switched to IFrames.

If you are building pages for clients, I hope you understand that now that everything is hosted on your site, (unless your client has their own server) you are going to see a dramatic increase in your bandwidth usage and if you are on shared hosting, your clients are going to be complaining soon if they are using slide show, live walk on actors or video.

I am not only charging new clients whose pages are hosted on my site a fee to build but also a yearly fee to host. The fee to build includes the first year hosting free and if they host on their own server I credit them the hosting fee.

It's always better to be prepared than to see all your profits eaten up within a year.
#facebook #fbml #iframes #reason #stopped #switched
  • Profile picture of the author Eamon Diamond
    Hi Maurice,

    I see Facebook changed things around alright from FBML to iFrames.

    On the up side though, the iFrame is an advantage for integrating your wordpress theme into their platform. All one has to do is get a theme no wider than 510px and upload it through their server and link it to facebook.

    I think it's real handy and convenient to work in the one area of wordpress when you need to make changes rather than having to use FBML, where if you had to make changes you had to take things from your server...make the changes and upload things again.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mo Goulet
    I agree but remember you are still hosting everything on your server. you are simply calling the page into Facebook.
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    • Profile picture of the author eyesocialize
      Hey Maurice,

      In one of your other threads pertaining to text messaging coupons through facebook you was supposed to give more info about that. And also from listening to your Interview with Sam Bakker you was going to be releasing info on this. I had expressed in that thread that I was interested. Is this still available?
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      • Profile picture of the author Mo Goulet
        Originally Posted by eyesocialize View Post

        Hey Maurice,

        And also from listening to your Interview with Sam Bakker you was going to be releasing info on this.
        Where did you hear the interview?
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  • Profile picture of the author Eamon Diamond
    Yes I agree, but it's a good thing for one's own use...as you say there are plenty out there that don't know how to go about doing this and are crying out for services like you offer to build them a page and host it on your server for them, just to get using Facebook quickly for their business.

    So saying that most of them would have to go through your server and that can eat up a lot of band width...so you'd certainly be right in charging the fee.
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  • Profile picture of the author rickjh
    Hi Maurice - I was under the impression that IFrames give added control, flexibility and functionality to FB pages. Because I was not seriously involved before iFrames came along I can't really speak for how FBML worked. It seems to me, from the FB user point of view, the cost for bandwidth is pretty insignificant. Perhaps I'm wrong. What sort of numbers are we talking about?
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  • Profile picture of the author Mo Goulet
    @eyesocialize somehow the admins felt my offer to do review copies was inappropriate and they removed the posts. I haven't figured out the reason so I made a preview copy of the texting section available free to anyone. See my signature for that download.

    @rickjh The amount of bandwidth used can vary according to the content pulled from your server. I just built a site for a local graphics business here and on their slide show there are about 15 different slides each of which I compressed the size down to about 200kb. Their images in their albums are stored on Facebook's servers so the size is not an issue there. Videos or Live walk ons are also an issue

    You can see his page at ....
    Windy City Arts | Facebook
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    • Profile picture of the author eyesocialize
      Originally Posted by proapc View Post

      @eyesocialize somehow the admins felt my offer to do review copies was inappropriate and they removed the posts. I haven't figured out the reason so I made a preview copy of the texting section available free to anyone. See my signature for that download.

      @rickjh The amount of bandwidth used can vary according to the content pulled from your server. I just built a site for a local graphics business here and on their slide show there are about 15 different slides each of which I compressed the size down to about 200kb. Their images in their albums are stored on Facebook's servers so the size is not an issue there. Videos or Live walk ons are also an issue

      You can see his page at ....
      Windy City Arts | Facebook
      Is there a discount code for your report available?
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      Grab your Free demo account http://EyeMobilize.com

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    • Profile picture of the author VegasGreg
      Originally Posted by proapc View Post


      You can see his page at ....
      Windy City Arts | Facebook
      (slightly off-topic, but not 100%) Went to look at the example site and the content section (the iframe area) is completely blank. :confused:

      I have noticed several sample sites I've tried to see today are blank. I am using Firefox. (I can see them in IE). Wonder if this is a Facebook issue or a software issue or what?

      Can't be good if a companies FB page is blank to Firefox users.
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      • Profile picture of the author Mo Goulet
        Originally Posted by VegasGreg View Post

        (slightly off-topic, but not 100%) Went to look at the example site and the content section (the iframe area) is completely blank. :confused:

        I have noticed several sample sites I've tried to see today are blank. I am using Firefox. (I can see them in IE). Wonder if this is a Facebook issue or a software issue or what?

        Can't be good if a companies FB page is blank to Firefox users.
        The reference page is an example of an IFrame that loads image heavy content.

        I've not had anyone experience this problem.

        I sent an email out to me "testing" list about 30 comrades and not one came back with a problem on the page load. It might have been just a glitch or your internet might have bogged done at that moment.

        Thanks for the heads up though...

        Just popped another blood pressure pill...LOL
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  • Profile picture of the author Black Hat Cat
    Banned
    Originally Posted by proapc View Post

    I just finished a mastermind session with a group of my partners and was shocked to find out that most did not have a clue as to why Facebook switched to IFrames.

    If you are building pages for clients, I hope you understand that now that everything is hosted on your site, (unless your client has their own server) you are going to see a dramatic increase in your bandwidth usage and if you are on shared hosting, your clients are going to be complaining soon if they are using slide show, live walk on actors or video.

    I am not only charging new clients whose pages are hosted on my site a fee to build but also a yearly fee to host. The fee to build includes the first year hosting free and if they host on their own server I credit them the hosting fee.

    It's always better to be prepared than to see all your profits eaten up within a year.
    Maybe I missed it....what is the reason FB switched to iframes?
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    • Profile picture of the author frankiej
      Hi proapc,
      I would like to know if you could offer some advice. I am having a problem when creating my app in fb. where you enter the site domain and url where I am hosting my web page for fb to call up I get invalid site domain error messages. I am hosting on host gator and it is a valid website up and running. Have you encountered this issue with any app? Need a little help to figure this out if you could. Also i def plan on getting the pdf as soon as I can with the discount. Any response would be appreciated
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      • Profile picture of the author Mo Goulet
        Originally Posted by frankiej View Post

        Hi proapc,
        I would like to know if you could offer some advice. I am having a problem when creating my app in fb. where you enter the site domain and url where I am hosting my web page for fb to call up I get invalid site domain error messages. I am hosting on host gator and it is a valid website up and running. Have you encountered this issue with any app? Need a little help to figure this out if you could. Also i def plan on getting the pdf as soon as I can with the discount. Any response would be appreciated
        Look for IFrameWrapper on Facebook.

        They're app is free and it'll solve your problem
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    • Profile picture of the author O0o0O
      Originally Posted by Black Hat Cat View Post

      Maybe I missed it....what is the reason FB switched to iframes?
      Facebook switched to iFrames to reduce the bandwidth from their servers and switch it to the servers of the fan page owners. This isn't a new idea. They have done iFrames in the past with FBML code. It was just more difficult to implement.

      The real reason Facebook did this was to free up bandwidth for their new social graph they implemented not too long ago. Soon, tens of millions of websites will contain iFrames with Facebook embedded inside - Like Buttons, Like Boxes, Comment Boxes, Face Piles and more. This takes up way too much resources, and Facebook had to compensate for that somehow. The solution was to ditch fan page hosting and put the hosting burden on the fan page owners.
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      • Profile picture of the author Nathan Hangen
        If you have enough traffic to worry about the bandwidth, then you should be making enough not to make it worth your while. In other words - it's not a big deal.
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      • Profile picture of the author CPApromoter
        Originally Posted by O0o0O View Post

        Facebook switched to iFrames to reduce the bandwidth from their servers and switch it to the servers of the fan page owners. This isn't a new idea. They have done iFrames in the past with FBML code. It was just more difficult to implement.

        The real reason Facebook did this was to free up bandwidth for their new social graph they implemented not too long ago. Soon, tens of millions of websites will contain iFrames with Facebook embedded inside - Like Buttons, Like Boxes, Comment Boxes, Face Piles and more. This takes up way too much resources, and Facebook had to compensate for that somehow. The solution was to ditch fan page hosting and put the hosting burden on the fan page owners.
        Other than text and code, facebook has never hosted the multimedia content of fan pages. Anything other than the text and code still had to be called from another server when using FBML, so this doesn't seem to be the definitive reason in my opinion.
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  • Profile picture of the author kurttasche
    I think Facebook's changes will end up being more beneficial, as it will allow alot more flexibility than FBML did.
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    • Profile picture of the author jackheape
      Interesting. I did not realize why FB had changed to Iframes. Makes sense when you think about it. As far as the bandwidth issue is concerned I don't think that will effect too many people. I would like to have that problem.

      Thanks for the info.
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