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A Deeper Look at the Open Graph Protocol

2010 May 20 By David Bliss

What is the Open Graph Protocol?
The Open Graph Protocol specifies how to provide structured data and turn content into objects recognizable by Facebook. The goal is to make consistent information available to Facebook’s software so that it can understand how to organize and present the content within its platform. As a result, content that lives on any website can become part of the Social Graph.

While there is a good deal of debate about what this protocol means for the open web movement, it is difficult to ignore a protocol that will affect the presentation of content to Facebook’s massive user-base. Among other things, integrating this data within a site will improve how content appears within users’ newsfeeds and their profiles as well as likely boost the content’s ranking within Facebook’s search.

Open Graph data associated with a movie on IMDB as seen in the News Feed on Facebook.

How does it work?
The information for each object is be added as metadata to a webpage featuring the content being defined. Only one object can be defined within a page, so each item requires a unique page to present the data associated to it. As an example, each pair of jeans on the Levi’s site has a product page where the metadata is provided for Facebook.

The content becomes part of the Social Graph once Facebook has been directed to this page and the data is imported into their platform. One way to do this is with new Like Button plug-in. The Like Button can refer Facebook to any URL, so it is possible for a button to be included on the page defining the content, or on another page. Looking again at the Levi’s site, they’ve included a button for each pair of jeans featured on their home page and category pages.

Levi’s ecommerce site features “Like” buttons for multiple items on a single. Each button refers to the product detail page which includes the Open Graph data.

Metadata Specifics
The metadata properties included in the specification are straight-forward and can be found on the Open Graph site. The following example, taken from that documentation, includes the four required pieces of data (title, type, url, and image).


<html xmlns:og="http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/"> 
<head> 
<title> The Rock (1996)</title> 
<meta property="og:title" content="The Rock" /> 
<meta property="og:type" content="movie" /> 
<meta property="og:url" content="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117500/" /> 
<meta property="og:image" content="http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/rock.jpg" /> 
...
</head> 
...
</html>

Optional properties allow you to add additional information including a description of the content, the URL of the site containing the content, as well as location and contact information for the object.

The documentation mentions that this method of including the information as metadata on the page is being used for the “initial version” of the protocol. It doesn’t mention what specific plans they have for future versions. There would be some advantages to being able to mark up visible content within the page — as is done with microformats — rather than relying on metadata which is hidden from the user.

Different types of content
There are several types of objects that can be identified using the protocol. The list seems extensive (35 options), but there are some things that are absent. For example, there is no way to identify an Event. Facebook has already added support for an article type, which was originally missing from the specification. Hopefully, the options will continue to grow over time based on feedback from the community.

Open Graph data objects appear, organized by type, within Likes and Interests on Facebook profiles.

Ongoing relationships with users
Beyond integrating their content into the Social Graph, content owners have the ability to gather analytics about the users who “Like” their content as well as reach out to them using stream updates.

Once users “Like” a piece of content with Open Graph metadata associated to it, their profile becomes linked to the object and administrators associated with that object can view statistics about it and send messages to users in the same way they manage their Facebook Pages.

What do we think?
Implementing the Open Graph Protocol gives brands an opportunity to better represent their content within Facebook both on profile pages and within their search results. Brands also gain insightful marketing tools within the Social Graph.

Social Plug-ins, such as the Like Button, provide easy ways for Facebook users to associate themselves with this content and to share it with their friends.

As for the open vs closed web debate, we’ll leave that for others to sort out. Perhaps, the Open Graph Protocol will either be adopted by additional organizations and become more open in the process. Maybe it will accelerate the formulation of an alternate, fully-open standard. Either way, we’re glad Facebook made this move.