*JavaScript knowledge required
Our recent research shows that the top performing apps are those that interface with social networks (like Facebook or Twitter). So if you’re looking for a million installs, it’s a good idea to consider something using Facebook’s API.
Over the next few weeks and months, we’ll be sharing more specifics about building apps that use Facebook’s API and API’s of other social networking sites, but right now, we thought we’d get you started with the basics.
Just the basics:
1) You need to register your own Facebook application to get Facebook API access.
Here is how you do this.
As soon as you have your API key you can start writing your JavaScript code that will access Facebook. (If you don’t know JavaScript, but you have a great idea, you can hire someone to help you with this on Elance or vWorker.)
2) Below are some great examples we have used to start creating our Facebook client application:
Official Facebook resource.
Several examples & demo on how to actually work with Facebook from JavaScript.
Another example on how to work with the friends feature on Facebook.
Another great article detailing building a nice-looking friends list in JavaScript.
A small example on how to use the Facebook API to work with messages.
3) Once you have finished creating your app, you just need to convert it into a native Android app using Appsgeyser.com’s Create App from Widget or From URL option. And voila! You have your next Facebook client app created and ready to be published in the Android market.
Please remember that you do not need to have all the functions within your app. You could simply provide a way for the users to use one specific Facebook feature within your app (like check or write messages.) For the rest of Facebook functionality, you can redirect people to Facebook website.
In our next post in this series, we will be creating Facebook app for Android step-by-step. So be sure to stay tuned!