Debuted in May 2007, the Facebook Platform provides a set of APIs and tools enabling third-party developers to integrate with the “open graph” through applications on Facebook.com or external websites and devices. The platform allows users to interact with their Facebook friends while playing games, listening to music, watching movies, reading news, and engaging in other activities.
The platform was initially used to host applications in tabs on a user’s page, but has since been more practically used by websites with Facebook Connect. According to a new study by website monitoring service Pingdom, 24.3% of the top 10,000 websites in the world now feature some sort of Facebook integration on their home page. At the end of March 2012, more than 9 million apps and websites integrated with Facebook.