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Last week, Facebook announced an update to the Open Stream API, which allows integration of Page streams with applications. Now, Facebook has opened up the new Mailbox and Notification APIs, which allow developers to provide users with more ways to interact with core Facebook features within their apps.

"For example, a desktop application geared toward small business owners could enable users to check their company’s Page stream, as well as read messages and receive notifications, all from their desktop," explains Facebook’s Ben Hiller.

In addition, Facebook has announced a new stream attachment for apps, which lets developers create attachments that users can share with friends via Facebook messages.

"The new Inbox incorporates the same Publisher used to publish to the streams on the home page and profiles," says Hiller. "We’ve enhanced the Publisher so it no longer requires you to create template bundles — you can now use the simplified attachment model that stream.publish uses. As we roll out the new Inbox over the next few weeks, we’ll deprecate the old message attachment process."

To integrate your apps into the new inbox, Facebook provides the following instructions:

1. Create a Publisher endpoint and enter its URL as the Attachment v2 Callback URL you specify on the Advanced tab in your application settings.

2. In your Publisher integration, specify "attachment" for the content parameter, instead of "feed".

3. Test your attachments today with your test accounts on www.beta.facebook.com.

Facebook is still supporting existing Publisher integrations that use the "feed" content type, but they say the flexibility of stream attachments is easier to use, and are more universal throughout Facebook.

For more on the new APIs, check out this blog post from Hiller.

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