Breaking News: Facebook just opened their Profile Sandbox to developers a few minutes ago. It looks like a lot of applications will need rework and updating. So now is the time to start looking into this before facebook rolls the changes live.

My first impression of the new facebook profile user interface after playing with it in the sandbox: I love it for several reasons. The photos tabs is going to bring photo discovery and sharing much closer to the surface. I actually think that more useful and frequently used applications will get better real estate on the boxes tab. Get ready for a large number of uninstalls to happen when this rolls live as people will clean up their apps and do some cleaning and purging.

The Facebook Profile Sandbox is located at www.new.facebook.com/profile.php

You can find the new facebook design integration guide here: http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/New_Design_Integration_Guide

My New Facebook Profile:

My profile application tab (now called “Boxes”)

A specific application with a tab

To start testing, you need to download the new version of the Facebook PHP client library. It’s available from svn.facebook.com/svnroot/platform/clients/php/branches/redesign-changes/

If you want to take the new design out for a test drive before changing your own applications, you can tinker with the MySmiley application that we developed. With it you can test all the new integration points (like create different-sized Feed stories, use the Publisher to create Feed content, add an application info section, place a box on the Boxes tab or left column, and create a custom application tab). You can use the test application at apps.new.facebook.com/mysmiley and view the application source code at svn.facebook.com/svnroot/platform/samples/smiley/.

Remember this is a beta sandbox for the new profile only, so some features are not necessarily enabled and others are still in flux. So you should expect some changes from what you see right now before this goes live. However, the features that are relatively stable and ready to test, explore, and comment on are the specific APIs and integration points, including:

* New Feed story sizes and types – including the template bundles
* Adding application tabs, and how application tabs function
* Publisher integration
* Setting up the new “main profile section” and adding those to profiles
* Application info sections

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