is it possible to let my own facebook apps (not generating revenue) being hosted by facebook?
The problem is that by using the iframe-version the traffic/requests are killing the server :-(
But I need to connect to a database and print/calculate values, so I think there is no other way than hosting everything on own servers. But maybe there are things I don't know.
What is the way you would go?
I don't think Facebook has an option to host apps, at least not that I've ever heard of or was quickly able to find on their developers site.
Honestly, when it comes to hosting a high-demand website, there's no free way to do it. Resources cost money. You can pick from tons of hosting providers and see who gives you the features you need at the best rate. Maybe some will offer free hosting if you include ads in the Facebook app, maybe some will offer free hosting for other means, etc.
For a non-revenue-generating app, when it becomes popular and successful and requires real resources to keep it running, it's generally time to start thinking about how to generate revenue from it. Maybe use it as a free gateway app to other revenue-generating apps (a loss leader), maybe have ads, maybe use it to generate useful marketing data, etc. For a successful site it may involve a good bit of personal investment and risk before the profits roll in (Facebook being a good, though extreme and uncommon example of this).
You have to host the application on your own, there's no way that FB does it for you.
Related
I have a business idea which I want to materialize for sometime .. I recently shared my idea with 2 close friends who also found it very interesting, new and doable plus the cost included for the project to start is reasonable and they have planned to invest in it. Much of the success of this project app depends on the proper marketing element out of which most of the time, you have to personally meet up with clients/vendor and make them use your application.
The idea is to connect local ecommerce (retail shops, businesses, vendors, etc.) with users/customers through a messaging app mostly similar to whatsapp. I have already started to look for a xmpp/jabber developer who can accomplish our requirements. We are expecting him to develop the app and also set-up the server requirements. Our budget lies within $3000-4000 range for the project to initiate.
I want the app to have the following aspects:
a) user friendly GUI
b) highly scalable (planning to start within my city located in south asia)
c) location sharing (want users to navigate nearby shops/vendor offering their type of goods/services)
d) have a user review feedback against vendors and an additional page for vendor profile/rating system
e) only customer - vendor chats with functionalities like camera snaps, audio recording (just like whatsapp).
f) both for ios and android
Now the whole idea outlaid, after reading lots of articles, discussion and tutorials, I have some questions (I am a non-technical person btw):
1- I believe ejabberd is the best option as compared to tigase or prosody due to high scability. Is this ok to go with or should I look at other xmpp servers?
2- Currently, I am planning to launch this application within my city (rated as worldwide no.2 as per population stats of above 25m people), should I set-up a local server with high internet bandwith and a powerful machine or should I outsource it to some xmpp hosted server in the US (as their technological infrastructure has always provided quality service).
3- Should I be worried about the developer stealing the source code or is there any effective way to minimize this risk?
4- Any ideas what other things I am missing. This is dead serious for me and I am willing to do anything to get this project on the road.
(P.S.: The idea for this app is similar to the existing app called Lookup but I am planning to add some variations to it)
Thanks and sorry for being a bit lengthy ..
Regards,
Ahmed
ejabberd is indeed likely your best bet. However, be careful about the budget. To launch a quality service in an highly competitive area you have to have a significant budget, both development and marketing, if you expect your project to succeed.
was wondering if anyone had a solution (hopefully simple) for how to change the repository that a SAPUI5 app pulls from.
i.e. when I'm accessing my app (might be hosted anywhere, but for argument's sake lets say on HCP in EU) and I'm in the EU, it makes sense to use the EU repository:
https://sapui5.hana.ondemand.com/resources/sap-ui-cachebuster/sap-ui-core.js
when in the US however, I'm going to get much better performance if I use the US repository:
https://sapui5.us1.hana.ondemand.com/resources/sap-ui-cachebuster/sap-ui-core.js
But short of having a US app and a EU app, how can I achieve this? I don't want to pop-up a request for the user to allow their browser to know where they are via using HTML Geo capabilities http://dev.w3.org/geo/api/spec-source.html and it seems most solutions to map IP addresses to location charge a fee (which I don't want to have to pay)
The standard way for this sort of thing on the web (afaik) would be just to use one address and have a CDN sort it out for you.
This doesn't seem to have happened for SAPUI5.
Anyone know why not? Or perhaps it has, and I just don't know about it, that would also be a very happily received answer.
Now, as of January 2015 there is such a CDN (with geo routing) implemented for OpenUI5 (or more specifically, for everything below the URL https://openui5.hana.ondemand.com).
It does not only serve the data from the closest SAP data center (Germany, USA, Australia), but uses the popular Akamai CDN technology on top, which provides thousands of servers around the world.
See http://openui5.tumblr.com/post/108835000027/openui5-in-your-neighborhood-a-true-cdn-has-gone for more details.
there is currently no such CDN with automatic routing to the closest server, sorry.
Reasons? Lack of time, money, demand...
There may be even free offerings for Open Source libs, but the total of UI5 is larger than your typical JS lib, so I'm not sure they would want it. And in older IE versions the cross-domain loading wasn't working anyway due to missing CORS support, hence a local deployment was preferred. And custom-tailored minimized runtimes for apps are the best for good performance, this is also not something a CDN can deliver. So currently there is no such thing even though it would be obviously good to have.
UI5 will load awesome fast if is part of a real app. Real app means a installable app from an App Store were the UI5 library is part of the app itself and not loaded from a server. That is the real destiny of UI5 and not putting it on a Gateway/Server (the Fiori Way, although there is the Fiori Client which tries to solve this).
I understand that SAP wants SAPUI5 on the backend because of integration in the SAP software lifecycle management. But it is bought with bad performance and caching issues. A very high price in my opinion! Luckily OpenUI5 is free to be part of real apps.
We're launching an iPhone app soon, and if everything goes well, we might reach up to tens of millions of user each day.
What server solution would you use for this? I guess a small VPS isn't enough. Is dedicated server a better choice? Is there any good hosting provider that can provide such servers?
I'm a newbie when It comes to servers, and would like some basic info about how to handle this.
Thanks in advance
Unfortunately, you are not really going to know the apps requirements until the app is launched. It all depends on how much the app needs to communicate with the server, and how often users are using the app. Depending on those variables and even more, a VPS might be enough, or you may need a dedicated box, or several. It also depends a lot on the performance of the VPS and dedicated boxes, furthermore it depends on how much access to the system you need.
Ultimately, it seems you may not even know how well the app is going to do, so I suggest you take the cheap/efficient route of using cloud computing. That way you will limit your expenses initially when you app has a small user base. Then your performance can amp up as quickly as your app requires (of course so will the price). That is the benefit of cloud computing, you will not be losing money in the beginning until you have the user base to use your server to its limit. Furthermore, you do not have downtime, etc when/if your server is no longer enough.
Check out Google's Cloud Computing to get a hint of what is possible. I personally like Google's cloud experience, but you have many more options with varying degrees of freedom that you will have to check out. Amazon of course is another possibility.
I have a website where people do simple cognitive psychology experiments. Currently, people volunteer. To increase numbers of responses, I would like to offer micropayments in a manner similar to Mechanical Turk*.
My question is, What would would be the best system to use to make these payments? I would guess that both paypal and flattr would be options. Has anyone with experience with setting up a micropayment system like this be able to offer advice?
cheers,
Mark
*I am not thinking about using mechanical turk itself, just because I do not think I would be able to control the web based studies exactly I would need.
Flattr would work in your scenario:
Each person doing the test would need a Flattr account.
They’d need to login with their Flattr account on your site (like on fundd.de) or connect your site with their Flattr (easy with OAuth).
Once they’ve taken the test you manually Flattr them and by controlling your monthly budget you control how much each click is worth.
Our API makes setting this up fairly easy and straightforward http://developers.flattr.net/
Downsides:
Required to sign up with an additional service.
Flattr currently caps monthly spending at €100 so if you have lots and lots of testers you’d run into problems of making the payment high enough. We are reconsidering this, at least for users in good standing.
Monetary incentives for testers bring in a different crowd and can influence the results of their tests but you probably already know that.
Cheers,
Teller
PS. I work at Flattr.
I understand that apple no longer allows me to send "device data" to third-party services. As a result of this, Flurry and presumably every other analytics company no longer collects OS/hardware version data. However, this data is very valuable to anyone trying to target development toward the people who are actually using the apps.
I can imagine a few different ways to collect this data.
1) Send a custom event indicating the hardware/os version to Flurry. This, of course, is in direct violation of the agreement with Apple. However, I suspect plenty of people are doing this, and just not getting busted. Still, not an ideal solution. Even if Apple didn't notice that we were sending this data, I'd rather not have the possibility of the app getting pulled hanging over my head.
2) Use an analytics package which allows me to collect data on my own server. Localytics is one company which seems to offer this. However, I don't think they offer this with their free plan. Is anyone aware of any free (or cheap) analytics tools which will allow me to send data to my own server?
3) Roll my own solution. This could either be an entire replacement for Flurry, or I could continue to use flurry, but send only the device data to my own server. This is a little clunky. I'd much rather have all my analytics data in one place. And would much rather not have to deal with building my own tool if I don't have to
So, is anyone else collecting device data? Are you using one of the above techniques? Or maybe something different I hadn't thought of?
Hi maybe "Testflight Live" could help you.
As far as I know Testflight is allowed by Apple.
https://testflightapp.com/sdk/live/
I've heard of people using UIWebViews to connect to a webpage with a counter. The counter is incremented each time a page is accessed, and the pages are separated by feature/UIView. This way the developer can tell which features get the most usage.
As far as device data, you most likely are looking at rolling your own tracking mechanism, probably going through a server like Google App Engine that's set up to receive your data.
I made this an answer so I could continue to check back, because I'd like to know some more info as well. I voted up your question and favorited it
Good luck, sir